


Mind Games

by ladyarcherfan3



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 20:55:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyarcherfan3/pseuds/ladyarcherfan3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a routine supply run ends in tragedy, Alec and Max uncover what looks to be a new plot by the Familiars to wipe out the transgenics. As Alec deals with his own memories and pain dug up by the investigation, Max handles with the fall out both personally and with TC in general, they begin to discover a few things about each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's Dark Angel Big Bang 2012, and posted there. This story was a blast for me to write, and as my first try at a Big Bang, this one was awesome, made so by the mods and all of the participants. Many, many thanks to candygramme for her beta work, and to kj_svala for her seriously awesome artwork.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing, but the muse owns me.

**Part One**

Max shifted from foot to foot and fought the urge to scream, or possibly even cry. A late afternoon rain splattered on the roof of Command, streaking down the dirty windows; a soft rumble of thunder rolled through the sky, breaking the monotony and adding to the unease in the room. She looked back down at the battered table and the equally worn map on it. Alec was across from her, the back end of a pen tapping an uneven pattern as he pointed at various sectors, muttering. 

They were waiting for a small team of X-5’s and X-6’s to get back from a supply run. The team was not quite late, but it was close. Tension rolled off of Alec in waves, but was only visible in the set of his jaw and the faint line between his eyes. Max knew he was edgy because the team was new, and he was cooped up in TC instead of having the fun of stealing from and evading Ordinaries himself. Max was stressed because that was her usual mood these days. And Alec’s mood was becoming infectious. 

“Well, after this week’s ‘raid and trade’, we should be set for medical supplies for a while, if no one else gets shot or anything,” Alec said suddenly, interrupting her brooding. 

Max nodded. There had been very little open violence after the siege on Terminal City began over two months ago. The peace talks had fallen away to tense waiting while the American government tried to decide what to do, and the transgenics simply tried to live. The wounds sustained during the initial conflict had long since healed, and the only hope was that no more would occur. 

“Thank goodness for Manticore genetics and healing abilities.” Max rolled her eyes and poked at the map, making the object her scapegoat for the moment. 

As much as the weekly meetings were necessary, she hated them. She was the leader of Terminal City, though, so she kept her mouth shut and did what she had to do. The boredom only added to her general frustration. She was someone who thrived on action and reaction – and there had been anything but that in that last months. 

“Too bad they couldn’t have made it easier to feed us,” Alec continued. “Revved up metabolisms take a lot.” He tossed the pen down with a sigh. “Hopefully Cap managed to get something good.” 

“What’s good to you? You survive on junk food and scotch.” 

“Even I like a steak once and a while,” Alec shot back. 

“Fresh salad would be nice,” Luke added from his perch by the computers and TV monitors. 

Max allowed a grin. 

“I will do my best to get the supplies to make life in TC more bearable,” Alec said with the tone of a martyr. “Salads and scotch and junk food.” 

“Hey now – we need actual supplies!” Max argued. 

“Do you _know_ how much I can sell a good bottle of scotch for on the black market?”

Max rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you’ve told me. Is that why you have a bottle sitting in your apartment?”

“Ha ha, funny. Too bad you couldn’t remember that I don’t drink all the stuff – I do trade it for ‘actual supplies’!” Alec snapped, the hint of a snarl edging his tone. Even with the excitement of being head scrounger for TC, sieges were boring as all hell and he didn’t do well with enforced boredom. 

“Oh, hey, Cap and his team are back!” Luke said, cutting into what was gearing up to be a classic Max versus Alec verbal sparring session.

The transhuman swiveled his chair back to watch as the guards opened the gate for a sleek car and a heavily loaded truck as they blasted in from the streets; Max and Alec quickly climbed the few stairs to the console platform, eyes glued to the screen. The few Ordinary soldiers on their side of the fence made a cursory effort to stop the transgenics; the siege wasn’t much more pleasant on the outside side of the fence. The vehicles pulled into the main courtyard and parked near the door to unload. A small crowd gathered to help, straggling out into the wet, grey day.

While Max settled down on a chair next to Luke, Alec lounged against the railing. He watched the action with interest, but made no move to go out and help. It was Cap’s first raid, and his from start to finish; Alec wasn’t going to steal the guy’s thunder by going out there before he was ready to report. Besides, there was no need for _everyone_ to get soaked. 

Then he frowned. The team was already out of the truck and unloading, but Cap remained in the lead car and looked rather ill at ease; one hand clenched the steering wheel while the other rested on his knee, fisted around something. Confused, Alec shifted his gaze to another monitor, which gave a better angle on the car. Tika, Cap’s girlfriend, lingered in the passenger seat a moment, obviously concerned; Cap waved her away after a moment and she joined the rest of the team at the truck, frowning. 

Cap must want a few more minutes with the car, Alec decided. It was a nice machine, sleek, fast and maneuverable. It was that, or the excitement of the day had disappeared and left a bunch of nervous energy in its wake. He doubted it was the latter; the X-5 was a trained soldier just like the rest of his series, and there had been no reports of screw ups or problems of any sort. The standing order was to radio in if there was any issue. Whatever was bothering Cap was probably either personal or trivial, Alec decided.

“Looks like Cap did well for his first time as solo leader,” Max observed as the loot moved from the truck into Command. 

Alec shrugged, but kept an eye on the TV screen. “He did learn from the best.” He grinned as Max glared at him. “It’s the truth; you can’t deny it!” 

“Whatever. We use what we have, even if it is substandard.”

Luke choked back a laugh as Alec scowled. 

“I am not substandard,” he muttered. “I have numerous certificates from Psy- Ops to prove that.” 

Before Max could reply, an explosion rocked the ground. The air snapped with noise and fire as the cameras blurred out with the shock. 

There was a split second of silence after the blast. Then the cameras flickered back to life.

“What was that? What the _hell_ was that?” Max shouted and leapt to her feet.

Alec went utterly still. “Damn it,” he swore. 

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Luke babbled as he stared up at the monitors where the flaming wreck of the car and truck were terrifyingly visible.

“They were in the compound, practically on top of the building! What happened?” Max sucked in a deep breath and spun to bark orders to the gathering crowd of transgenics, drawn by the sound of battle and death. “I need a medical team together, there’s going to be wounded! Get the tactical team out there in case anyone is trying to get through the gates or is already in! Get me some intel!”

“On it.” Alec ignored the stairs and vaulted over the railing. “TAC team, on me!” 

“You heard him!” Mole roared as he pushed through the crowd, “Get armed and fall in!” He picked up a shotgun and tossed Alec a rifle from the rack behind the command table. 

Alec snatched it out of the air as he sprinted out the door, the team falling in behind him. 

Time ran strangely for Max. Words were slow and muffled, as if they were underwater, but everyone moved too fast, as if they were blurring. What was happening? Terminal City was supposed to be a safe place for the transgenics, and now they were being attacked inside their refuge. There was a slim chance this was some sort of freak accident, but the only freaks here were the transgenics themselves. Everything else had motivation behind it. She sucked in a breath, and the world sorted itself again for her eyes. 

Alec and his team were already out in the courtyard, and the medics hovered near the doorway, waiting for the all clear signal. Max shouldered her way through the crowd. 

“Out of my way,” she snapped. A heavy hand took her shoulders from behind, the grip strong but gentle.

“Little fella needs to stay inside,” Joshua said. 

Max turned and looked up at her giant friend, impatience and fear removing the gentle tone she usually reserved just for him. “Joshua, let me go. We have people out there that need help, and we’ve been attacked.” 

“That’s why you stay inside,” he argued. “Max is TC’s leader – you can’t get hurt if something goes sideways out in the middle of things.” 

“What are you talking about? I’m always in the middle things,” she struggled against his hold, but without real desire. Joshua was talking sense, even if she didn’t want to hear it. 

“Alec and Mole will take care of anyone trying to attack us. Doc Fraiser will take care of hurt ones. You will stay in and be a leader.” 

She took another deep breath and nodded. “Alright. Alright. I’ll stay here.”

Joshua nodded and moved away, letting Max have her space. 

“Okay people!” she shouted over the building tumult as she climbed the steps again to have a height advantage over the crowd. “I need the route from the courtyard to the med wing secured and cleared so we can get our people through, and make it fast! But no one is to go out there until we have the all clear sign. I need another team to handle the fire and recover whatever supplies we can. Everyone else – you need to stay out of the way and be ready in case anything else happens.” 

The transgenics moved to follow her orders, and Max turned to the monitors to see the smoldering wreck of the vehicles, supplies and good people, all smoldering in the grey rain. 

Outside, Alec was past the wreck and halfway to the gate. He pressed his back against the rough brick of an outbuilding and scanned the courtyard again, eyes sweeping from the ground to the towering heights of surrounding buildings. Nothing, except the Ordinaries outside the gates; they milled anxiously, unsure of what to make of the explosion. He looked at Mole and the rest of the team.

“Anything?” he shouted to them; no one had thought to grab walkies or coms. 

“Nothin’,” Mole replied, shaking his head. 

“Great,” Alec muttered, “Then what the hell happened here?” He stood signaled an all clear. “Get the medics out here!” 

He turned his attention back to the world bordering the trangenics’ city. It was the same rain dampened grey as it ever was, with the added scenery of nervous National Guardsmen and morbidly fascinated civilians, drawn by the explosion. He slung the rifle over his back and waved to the weekend soldiers. “Nothing for you boys to worry about!” he called, flicking them a mock salute. “Go back to your tea party!” 

They lowered their weapons, but he noticed no one put the safeties back on. It was understandable – he wouldn’t have either. 

Even though he had given an all clear sign, Alec wasn’t satisfied. He made his way across the rest of the courtyard, peering through the fences and at the surrounding buildings, looking for something to explain the explosion. The sounds of the med team moving the dead and wounded, the hiss of fire as it went under attack from the rain and the efforts of the recovery team all faded to background noise. The relentless rain was harder to ignore as it beaded on his leather jacket and ran through his hair and into his eyes. He blinked away the drops and went still.

Outside of the gates, just beyond the Guardsmen, a man in a dark overcoat stood watching the trouble inside of TC. There was nothing particularly notable about him – average height and build, dark eyes and dull blond hair parted to one side. But his stance, the arrogant tip of his head screamed that he was more, much more, than a simple pedestrian who had stopped to watch the commotion in morbid fascination. 

Even as Alec studied him, the man noticed the inspection. The dark eyes lifted and stabbed across the distance, drilling into the transgenic’s inquisitive gaze. Alec winced, eyes flicking closed as the briefest moment of pain filled his head; he saw a flash of red. When he looked again, the man was gone. 

“Alec! We could use a hand here!” Mole bellowed from across the courtyard. 

“Yeah.” He turned and hurried back to the wreckage, shaking his head to get rid of rain and unease as he went; it didn’t work as well as he would have liked.

On the outside of the National Guard blockade, the dark eyed man smiled in satisfaction as he watched the terrified efforts of the transgenics. With a slight nod, he turned and walked away from Terminal City. No one looked at him or spoke to him as he went. 

A grey sedan was parked about a block away and he calmly unlocked the door and slid behind the wheel. Inside the vehicle’s comfortable and dry shelter, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket and jabbed a button for speed dial. The call went through immediately but he paused a moment, listening, before he gave an answer. 

“Yes sir. The results are as expected; everything went without a problem. I doubt the transgenics have any idea of what really happened. Yes sir, of course. _Fe'nos tol._ ”


	2. Part 2

**Part Two**

Max sat at her desk, head in her hand, shoulders bowed with weariness. The official reports lay scattered across the scarred wooden surface, the stark black words and numbers on the white paper hardly giving justice to the horror that had occurred. 

Out of the six member team, four were dead, including the rookie leader, Cap. The remaining two were badly injured, as were several other transgenics who had been near the vehicles when the explosion happened. The truck and point car were both destroyed, as were any of the goods that hadn’t been removed before the blast. This included the medical supplies and some food they had all been waiting on. Less than twenty four hours ago, she had been bored out of her mind. Now, she was hip deep in reminders of why boredom was sometimes preferable. 

The scuff of a boot on the concrete floor and the creak of well-worn leather was the only warning Alec gave to his entry. He never bothered to knock. 

Max didn’t even bother to look up. “The answer is still no, Alec.” 

“I didn’t even ask a question,” he said petulantly as he plopped down on the chair across from Max’s desk. “And you’ll say yes to me in less than a minute.” 

“I know what you’re going to ask. And no, I won’t. You can’t go out on an R and T for meds for a few more days. The media’s all over the place out there and Mycroft is ninety nine percent certain that the supplies will last that long.” She traced pointless patterns over the papers with her finger. 

“You believe our trusty battle processer, then?” Alec asked. 

Mycroft was a battle processor like the former Brain - but without the fixation on Max. He had joined them a little over a month ago, managing to shake his apathy long enough to make the trip from his apartment across Seattle to TC. His processing had led to better systems of rationing and trade, and so earned him a place with the rest of the transgenics, though he hardly mingled and kept his own company.

Max rolled her eyes. “Yes, I do.” 

Alec grinned. “Ha! Made you say yes.” He tipped the chair backward to balance on two legs, boots propped up on her desk. 

“Ugh, you are such a child!” Max grabbed a pencil and flicked it at him. 

He caught it easily less than an inch from his face. “Looked in the mirror recently, Max?” He threw the pencil back at her. 

She snatched it out of the air with a slight grin. “Have you?” She stopped, taking in the smudge of dirt and ash across one cheek bone, his grimy hands, suddenly remembering what she had asked him to do. “What did you find out?” she asked softly.

Eyes downcast, he shrugged. “Not much to find. The firefighting efforts basically tore everything apart.” The thumb of his left hand scrubbed at his right, smudging at the ash clinging to his skin. “I used to blow up cars, Max, not try and put them together again.” He flashed a bitter grin at her. 

“So we have no idea what happened?”

“Oh, it’s perfectly clear what happened.” He waved a hand. “The explosion started in the car, caught up the fuel containers for the generators that were in the trunk. That in turn triggered the explosion that took out the truck, which also had fuel and the rest of the supplies. Big booms. Lots of fire.” He put his feet down and the chair rocked back onto all four legs with a crack. “The question is: why the hell did Cap trigger it?”

Max sat up in surprise. “Cap triggered it?” 

“Were we watching the same explosion?” he demanded. 

“We were, just not the same things, apparently.” 

“Well, I was watching Cap.” He tapped his temple with a forefinger; Max watched a flake of ash drift out of his hair and to the floor. “Thanks to Manticore memory, I’ve replayed the damn thing over in my head a thousand times. He was just sitting in the car – he looked…off. Tika noticed it too. Something was wrong. And he had something in his hand. Must have been a grenade or a trigger of some sort. Haven’t found anything yet to suggest there was a bomb on the car itself, but what do I know?” 

They sat in silence for a few moments. 

“You could have rewatched the tapes, you know, instead of bruising your brain remembering,” Max said finally, thanking him in a roundabout manner. 

Alec shook his head. “Didn’t want to bother Luke or Dix. And aren’t you always telling me to use my brain for a change?”

“You need the reminder,” she said; he snorted in reply. 

“Heh. Have you been doing anything or just angsting over those papers?” When Max just looked at him, he shrugged. “I’m not saying you’re not allowed a little time to grieve and freak out, but we’ve got people who need stuff, including leadership.” He spread his hands. “I can usually handle everything else, but everyone expects you to be the leader.”

Max sighed. “I was never a leader, even when we were kids. Zach was the CO. I was the lone wolf. How did I end up in charge of TC?” 

“I wonder the same thing myself,” Alec said, eyes drifting innocently to the ceiling. 

“Don’t interrupt me!” she warned, though she had no idea where her train of thought had been going. 

He looked affronted. “You took a breath. I can insert my thoughts at that point.”

“Shut up.” 

“Okay.” 

Max sighed again and ran her hands over her face. “What sort of stuff do we need, beyond the supplies that you’re not allowed to get for a few days?” 

Alec grinned, though it was subdued. A plan of action was what he need at the moment, something to take his mind off the car bomb. “Now we’re talkin’. For starters, we need another truck, along with a fast car to run point and interference. Can’t make decent runs without them.” 

Max nodded, but then took a different track. “And we need to find out if anyone noticed Cap acting strangely. In case this isn’t a random thing. We can’t risk more people.”

“What, do you think this is some sort of rebellion?” 

Max shook her head. “I have no idea what this is. I’m not going to rule anything out. TC has fences and rules; maybe someone’s getting claustrophobic.”

“Yeah, cuz the alternative of being hunted down like animals by Ordinaries and Familiars is so much more attractive.” Alec rolled his eyes and then blinked, brows pinching together. 

“What?” Max asked. The expression had little to do with their discussion. 

“Nothing,” Alec waved it off, but then shook his head. “I’m not sure, but I want to say I spotted a Familiar hanging around after the explosion.” 

“I’m sure White has spies watching us all the time,” she suggested. 

“No, he was purposely showing himself. And I dunno, he just … reminded me of Psy-Ops and White.” 

Max felt the almost instinctive tingle of fear run through her at the mention of the place. “What do you mean?” 

Alec chuckled darkly. “Because he was arrogant as anything and looked at me like I was filth but not a scary monster like most Ordinaries do, and he gave me the shivers.” Max glared at him and he shrugged. “It’s just a gut instinct, but I trust my gut.” 

“You don’t think White has some rouge Pys-Ops people press ganged, do you?” 

“God, I hope not. Phys Ops people were bad enough at Manticore when they weren’t trying to killing us. If they’re under White’s orders or gone rogue…” Alec shuddered dramatically. 

“Mia wasn’t all that bad, and she was rogue.” 

“She still put the whammy on me – numerous times. And made me hug Logan.” He grimaced, equally sincere and dramatic. “I don’t like people messing in my head.” 

“If they can find anything in that empty space between your ears.” 

“Funny. Speaking of Logan, you should call him. Or video chat, whatever you do.” 

Max froze, uncertain. “Why?” She and Logan were still on rather rocky ground, despite the nonverbal confession of their continued feelings for each other prior to and at the flag raising. Being separated by a DNA targeted virus, a siege, and hazardous toxins did that to a relationship. 

“We need a good car, but maybe better than the one that just blew up– fast, powerful, preferably with tinted windows and bullet-proofing. Think drug lord or government official.” 

“Aren’t they the same thing?” Max asked with a wry smile. 

Alec pursed his lips. “Yeah, basically. But Logan might know of an especially corrupt one or two who could stand to lose a car. Not that I really care where it comes from, I just thought you’d like the rob-from-the-rich-and-corrupt angle.”

She took a deep breath and kept several comments to herself. “Okay. I’ll get a hold of him and see about the vehicles.” 

“Alright, then, I’m gone.” He stood up and rolled the tension out of his shoulders. 

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna see if Tika and Spruce are up to talking yet. They might remember something about Cap or the car.” 

Max nodded. “Let me know if you find anything out.” 

“You’ll be the first.” He nodded and went for the door. Just before he closed it behind him, Max called out.

“Alec!” 

He stuck his head back into the room. “Yeah?” 

“Go easy on them.” 

“You know me, Max,” he said with a faint smile. The door clicked shut. 

She dropped her head in her hands once again. “And that’s what worries me some days.” 

Then she shook her head. Who was she kidding? Alec had grown up and done just as much for TC as she had. His wide web of connections and dealers had expanded through the city and even had tendrils reaching out of the state, as he strove to help keep TC fed and comfortable. Granted, he did have a tendency to buck her orders and attempt to do things by himself, but she often felt a similar desire. 

And while the transgenics looked to her as a leader, she had noticed many of them respected Alec and generally _liked_ him. He was the one who many of the younger X-series or the shyer transhumans went to with their complaints and suggestions; he organized the various raids and trades and rotated the duties around TC to fit skill levels and fight boredom. Even the random gambling pools of anything from feats of endurance to poker were put together by Alec. In short, he had become her second in command without realizing it. She wondered if he thought his job sucked as much as hers did. 

*

Alec had to cross the courtyard to get from Max’s office in Command and reach the med wing. The ruins of the vehicles had been removed after his inspection, but the burn marks and ash remained. It would take buckets of Seattle’s persistent rain to wipe away the physical reminders; he wasn’t sure what would wipe away the mental scars. The explosion replayed in his mind as he hunched his shoulders against the cold wind; the images tangled with older memories, but he shoved them all away. He couldn’t afford to be distracted or appear upset. That would do little to bolster the confidence and memories of the wounded transgenics. 

Terminal City didn’t have any buildings that had been a proper hospital or even a clinic, just a few nurses’ offices scattered throughout. Even if there had been a hospital, TC’s general state of neglect and ruin would have required a huge revamp to get it in working order again. So when Doc Fraiser had showen up in TC, a few weeks before the siege started, she got to work. She’d nabbed an office building with good plumbing and electrical connections and cleaned it up with the help and meticulous care of several medically minded transgenics. They’d set up beds and equipment in offices, and reworked the break room into an ER. The lobby had kept the reception desk and waiting area, but it could also double as a triage center. The place wasn’t fantastic, but it was clean and did the job. 

Once inside the med wing, Alec headed straight for the desk and TC’s head-doctor-in-charge standing behind it. 

“Eh…What’s up Doc?” he called, a cocky grin lighting up his face. 

“That joke was old two hours after we met, Alec. Can’t you think of anything better?”

“You gotta appreciate the classics!” he declared.

Doc Fraiser rolled her eyes and straightened up from the files she had been organizing. She was an imposing woman, nearly as tall as Alec, strong but lithe, able to move patients around and to get from place to place quickly. Initially, she’d trained as a field medic, but, once the X-5’s had been sent on solo missions, she’d been stationed as either a nurse or doctor in military hospitals or government facilities. Her field and hospital training had helped keep the transgenics whole and healthy, but even the Doc hoped her skills would be in less of a demand than they currently were.

“How can I help you today?” she asked. “It doesn’t appear that you have any battle wounds.” 

“I never get wounded, what are you talking about?” He grinned as Doc Fraiser looked up and raised an eyebrow; she’d treated his bullet wound after the Jam Pony incident. He settled his elbows on the reception desk, hands clasped in front of him, repentant and focused. “I was wondering if Tika and Spruce are up for visitors today. I have some questions to ask them.” 

Doc Fraiser frowned slightly. “They are both recovering as well as to be expected.”

“Does that mean they’re doing well, but you don’t want me to bother them; or that they are doing well, and you’re going to let me go talk to them?” 

“It means that I’d rather not let you in their rooms, but I know we have to get to the bottom of what happened.” The Doc shifted her focus and scrutinized Alec. 

He shifted uneasily; she was nothing like the Manticore doctors, but anyone in the medical field staring at him intently was more than a bit unnerving. “So..?” 

“You can go in,” she said, “but only after you change out of those soot covered clothes. I don’t care if we have a higher tolerance to germs than an Ordinary, I don’t want all that dirt in those clean rooms or near burns.” 

“Wha-?” he started but any further protests were cut off by the appearance of a set of scrubs that Doc Fraiser shoved in his face. 

“Wash your hands and face, too,” she instructed and pointed the restroom door.

“What are you, my mother?” 

“I am far too young and attractive for that,” she replied, without bothering to look at him as she went back to the files on her desk.

Alec grinned. “All right, I’ll give you that.” Doc Fraiser’s soft chuckle followed him as the door swung shut. 

A few minutes later, cleaned up and dressed in a white t-shirt and blue scrub pants, Alec eased the door to Spruce’s room open. The lanky X-6 was dozing, but when the doorknob rattled, he blinked himself awake. 

“Oh, hello, sir,” he said, voice scratchy. 

Alec snorted. “What’s with the ‘sir’? Did you bump your head and think you’re back at Manticore?” 

Spruce managed a smile. “Manticore never had digs this nice,” he replied, relaxing back into the soft bed. 

“Yeah, you’re right there,” Alec agreed as he settled on the chair next to the bed, his eyes flicking over the décor absently. Doc Fraiser had done her best to make her infirmary as unlike Manticore’s as possible. The rooms were painted pastel shades instead of the stark white and outfitted with the comfortable beds TC could offer. Aside from the necessary medical equipment and lack of carpeting, it might have been a neutral guest bedroom. “So, how you doin’?” 

“Not too bad, considering.” He held up his burned and bandaged arms; white gauze ran from elbows to hands. Scorched pink skin streaked one side of his face as well. An edge of the blast had caught him with more than enough punch. “Doc Fraiser’s been great. She says I’m healing at a good rate. Should be as good as new pretty soon.”

“That’s swell, kid,” Alec agreed with a grin. “Then we can get you behind the wheel of a car and teach you proper evasive driving techniques.” 

A smile lit Spruce’s long face, but it faltered after a moment. “I suppose you’re really here to talk about the explosion, not just check up on me.” 

“I hate to be the bad guy, but yeah. Not that I wouldn’t have visited,” Alec clarified, “it’s just that we do need to figure out what happened.” 

“I wish I could tell you what went wrong, but I have no idea. The pick-ups went without a problem, we didn’t have any problems getting through the streets… and then we got back, and the explosion…” Spruce swallowed sharply and collected himself, the Manticore manufactured mask of the ‘always alright soldier’ falling into place. “Sorry, sir.” 

“Cut it out with the ‘sir’ crap,” Alec said, but not harshly. “Or Max will think you’re trying to boost my ego.” 

Spruce gave a weak grin. “I can’t remember anything else.” His brow furrowed in concentration, his face going grey. 

“Hey, don’t strain a muscle.” When the kid relaxed, Alec gave him a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. “Rest up, Spruce. The R and T gang is missing you already.” He stood and went to the door. 

“Thank you, sir – sorry. Are you going to talk to Tika?” 

Hand on the doorknob, Alec paused and nodded. 

“Just go easy on her… I think she’s taking this pretty hard,” Spruce said uncertainly. 

Alec’s eyebrow lifted. Why did everyone assume he was an unfeeling jerk? Yes, he had a long history of having the last inappropriate word, but he did know how to behave. “They were close, yeah?” 

Spruce nodded. “I remember Cap saying once that he liked her, before Manticore blew, he and really liked her once they went to ground together.” 

“I bet,” Alec said with a smirk, never one to pass up acknowledgement of a double entendre. 

The X-6 either decided to take the mature route or was too focused to notice. “But I heard her talking to one of the nurses, earlier,” he tapped his ear, and Alec nodded in understanding. Enhanced hearing wasn’t always the best thing to have. “And Tika said something about just getting Cap back, just to lose him for good.” 

“What did she mean by that? Those two arrived together and were barely ever apart.”

“I don’t know. It’s just all crazy, you know? If I wasn’t in here, I wouldn’t believe it had all really happened.” 

“Believe me, kid, it’s real,” Alec said softly. “Way too real.” 

A few moments later, he stood outside of Tika’s room. There was no noise from inside; Alec was half expecting to hear stifled sobs or at least quiet tears from what Spruce had said. Yet, there was nothing. He steeled himself and opened the door. 

Tika was sitting up in her bed, hands on in her lap. The energy had been drained from her, face white beneath her sheet of red hair, vibrant smile gone. Her gaze rested on some spot across the room, but she obviously wasn’t seeing the paint job. If she had cried recently, any traces of tears had been washed away. Suddenly, she realized she was no longer alone. Dull eyes blinked rapidly and turned towards Alec, a faint smile of welcome on her lips. The expression didn’t spread to the rest of her face. 

Alec blinked away images of his own face in a mirror, glimpses of fellow X-5’s in his unit, all with the same empty expression. Hysterics and tears were what he expected and had braced for, but this all-encompassing, masked sorrow was far too familiar. It was a mistake to forget that Tika had been a Manticore soldier, no matter how relaxed she could be around the TC on a normal basis. Emotions had been a weakness for the X-5’s for the entirety of their lives, and habits of self-preservation didn’t disappear overnight. Manticore might be long gone, but the scars and fears it had left behind would probably take a lifetime to fade.

“Hello, Alec,” Tika said, but her tone was like her expression – lifeless and flat. 

“Hey,” he replied and sat down on the chair next to her bed. For some reason, it was a straight backed wooden chair without cushions, where the one in Spruce’s room had been a recliner. Everything was working to make this discussion uncomfortable. “How are you?”

“I have a hairline fracture in my skull, a minor concussion, second degree burns on my arms, five stiches on my left leg, and various contusions and abrasions. Doc Fraiser is satisfied with my recovery rate, though.” She never said it, but the “sir” was implied in her tone. Unlike Spruce, it was deliberate, all part of the shield. 

Alec felt annoyance and satisfaction fight for dominance in his reaction. Tika was obviously grieving, but he wasn’t sure if a soft approach would cut through her defenses – it had never worked on him or any of the other transgenics he knew. At the same time, he wasn’t a heartless bastard; her reaction was too familiar, so he wouldn’t go at her with a verbal hammer if he could help it. In the end, though, the lack of emotion would help him get the answers he needed without wading through tears. 

“Did the Doc give you an expected date to check outta here?” 

She gave a sharp nod. “A week, give or take a few days. Doc Fraiser wants to ensure I am fully healed before releasing me.” Her eyes tracked back to the invisible point on the wall; if she hadn’t been in the bed, Alec would have said she was standing at attention. 

“Good,” he replied and took a breath. “I need to ask you some questions about what happened before the explosion.” 

She covered the flinch that rippled through her body at ‘explosion’ by looking back at him quickly. “What questions?” 

A little tension eased out of Alec’s body. At least Tika was willing enough to talk, even if she needed prompting. “Did anything happen on the R and T or on the way back that would get Cap off his game?” 

“No,” Tika started to shake her head but stopped. “Wait. There was a man,” she said slowly, the memory sorting itself into words. “We had stopped to wait for the truck – it had gotten tangled in traffic for a moment. Cap looked out the window, and there was a man staring at him. Cap went very still and pale, like he was frightened. Then the truck caught up, and we drove away, but he was almost robotic for a while. Once we got back, he just seemed edgy and impatient, even though he wouldn’t get out of the car. And he wouldn’t say anything to me.” There was the faintest waver in her voice as tears started in her eyes. Yet, she strove to maintain control. 

“The man you saw – what did he look like?” 

“An Ordinary. Medium build, blond hair, long coat. I didn’t like his eyes,” she added in a whisper. 

Alec clenched his jaw. Her description, as sparse as it was, ran very close to the man he had seen outside the fence. Whoever he was, there had to be a connection to Cap’s behavior and the explosion – he would stake the 25 year old bottle of Glenfiddich sitting in his apartment on that. 

“I need to ask another question, and it’s more personal,” he said. 

Tika had regained control, and the blank mask was firmly in place once again. She nodded in permission. 

“Did you and Cap get separated for a while before getting to TC?” 

The waver was stronger this time, and she simply nodded again, not trusting her own voice. 

“How long?” 

“Nearly a month.”

“What then? Did you find him, or …” Alec prompted. A bit of impatience crept into his tone and he fought it back, but Tika noticed. It seemed to open a flood gate of words.

“We had made our way to Seattle after Manticore went down, were staying low but still managing to live, but then he just vanished one day. I looked for him, searched the entire city, never gave up, and then one day he just turned up again. He refused to say where he’d been, what had happened, anything. We went to TC and just tried to move on. It was all going so well, even with the siege. And then…” A tear swelled in her eye and fell, tracing a wet trail down her cheek. She quickly brushed it away.

Alec felt like he had been handed a mixed pile of puzzle pieces and no picture to work from. He knew it should all work together, but there were segments missing, and he didn’t have a clear idea of what to work towards. He also felt a tug of empathy for Tika. She was a fellow X-5 and had gone through a lot of the same horrors at Manticore that he had. And she had just lost someone. It was a pretty crap hand to be dealt in an all-around crap world. 

“Tika,” he said, firm but gentle, and she looked at him even tears fought to escape once more. “This all sucks, trust me I _know_. And Manticore taught us some pretty horrible coping mechanisms, but just hang in there, okay?” He winced inwardly; that hadn’t come out quite as empowering or as comforting as he had hoped.

But Tika blinked rapidly and managed a faint smile. “Thank you,” she whispered. Then, her head went up slightly and she asked, “Is there anything else? I am getting tired.” 

He gave her a half smile. “No, that’s it.” 

“If I can help figure out what happened,” she swallowed hard and continued, “just let me know.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” he reassured her. “Take care of yourself, alright?” 

The door closed quietly behind him. Tika sagged against the pillows and finally allowed her tears for Cap to fall. 

*

Max often accused Alec of such behavior, but now she was playing the part of an annoyed petulant child. She swirled the cursor over the laptop screen as she waited for the video chat to connect. The reports of the explosion were finally done, as was the usual daily paperwork required to keep TC running smoothly. That had taken enough time, and she was anxious to make the call. Logan was taking his time answering, for some reason.

The laptop had been a fairly recent addition to her office, suggested – surprisingly - by Alec. He pointed out that her desire to oversee all aspects of TC required paperwork was going to take time and concentration. None of which she was going to get in the control room. 

“You can’t tell me that you’re going stay focused when I’m making plans for a raid and trade, or when Mole is discussing security with his guys,” he had said when the subject had come up. “You’re gonna be all over that, wanting to make comments or take over. And Luke and Dix chatter enough on their own – get a computer in your office, so you actually _use_ your office.”

She’d put up something of a fight, but that was simply out of principle. Alec scrounged up a good quality laptop, complete with web camera, and Dix installed it in her office. It had turned out to be rather useful in the negotiations and peace talks; the toxins of TC prevented the politicians from visiting, and the transgenics had been hesitant to leave the safety of their new home, as hostility had been high in the early days. It took some of the pressure off about being one hundred percent professional on her calls to Logan. 

The computer chimed, and Logan’s face appeared on the screen, Joshua’s old house a now familiar backdrop to their video chats. Max simultaneously sat up at attention and relaxed, a smile softening her face. “Hey you. Took you long enough. I was starting to think you were ignoring me.” 

“Hey yourself.” He settled into his chair. “And sorry. I was just making dinner; takes a bit more effort for a group. And when do I ever ignore you?” 

Max smiled. “When you cook, apparently.” She paused, his words finally filtering in, and then demanded, “Wait, who are you cooking for?” 

“I ran into some friends of yours when I was out and about.” He turned and gestured to someone off camera. 

A young man with curly blond hair stepped into view. He moved with transgenic grace, but was too young to be an X-5. The grainy screen smudged his features, but after a moment, she recognized him. 

“Bullet!”

“Hello,” he said, a nervous smile appearing and then disappearing just as quickly. “Uh, nice to see you again.” 

There was some shuffling off screen and then Zero, Fixit and Bugler popped into view. Logan edged out of the way with a faint smile 

“What are all of you doing here?” Max said, torn between annoyance and pleasant surprise. “You were all in Canada last I heard.” Her eyes flickered over the group. “Where’s Ralph?” 

“That’s kinda why we’re here,” Zero said. 

Bullet nodded gravely. “She’s missing.” 

Max frowned sharply. “Missing how?” 

“She disappeared one day. We managed to follow her trail – what there was of it - to Seattle, but then we lost it,” Fixit straightened from where she had been leaning closer to the computer and pushed her hair back out her face. 

“She didn’t just decide to leave?” Logan suddenly asked. 

“No,” Bullet said firmly. “She had no reason to leave, and she just disappeared.” He fought back the rising panic and frustration in his voice. 

“What was this trail that you followed here?” Max wondered. 

“Ralph had gone for a run,” Zero said. “When she didn’t come back at her usual time, we went out to look for her. It was a gravel road – so there were tracks. We followed those until we hit highway. Then, luckily, there was a highway camera. I managed to hack into the system and get a look at the van and the plates. We couldn’t figure out who it belonged to, other than it was from Seattle.” 

Logan raised his eyebrows, impressed. “They were going to give me the info they had after dinner,” he added. “Figured I might be able to get something for them.” 

Max smiled and then looked at Zero. “Good work, all of you. So computers are your talent, huh?” 

Zero grinned. “Figured my name sorta worked for that, too. Zero and one, computer base code.” 

“Nice,” Max agreed. “Did you get any leads on where Ralph might be in the city? How long have you been here?” 

“She’s been gone over two weeks, and no,” Bullet hung his head. “We’ve been looking, but it’s hard when everyone’s looking to see if you have a barcode.” 

“Yeah, Seattle’s not the friendliest place for transgenics,” Max agreed. “Which is why I wish you were still in Canada.” 

“Canada’s boring,” Bugler piped up. He fidgeted and kept glancing at the kitchen wistfully. 

“Sometimes boring’s better, kiddo” she said with a sigh. 

The door of her office snapped open and Alec strode in. “You talkin’ to Logan? Good.” He stepped around her desk and pulled the laptop towards himself without asking. “Hey Logan-” he stopped and his brow furrowed. “What are you punks doing here?”

“Ralph’s missing,” Max explained.

“I found them when I was grocery shopping,” Logan supplied.

Alec groaned. “Don’t tell me that you guys were trying to knock over a quickie mart again.” 

“We had money this time,” Fixit replied; Alec just rolled his eyes. 

“I recognized a certain transgenic quality to them, and Bullet hadn’t managed to cover his barcode all the way,” Logan explained. “I convinced them I was a friend – mentioned your name, Max – and then we came here for dinner.” 

He made it sound so casual, as if finding wayward transgenic strays was an everyday occurrence for him. Max smiled inwardly. Maybe it was, at this point.

“Well, if we can stow the family reunion for a moment, I’ve got some business for you, Logan,” Alec said. His voice was rather strained. 

“The food should almost be done,” Logan said to the young transgenics. “Why don’t you check on it, and then help yourselves?” 

Zero and Bullet traded a look that said ‘well, I guess the grownups want to talk’, but Fixit was already ushering the obviously hungry Bugler towards the food. Soon the sound of clicking silverware and contented chattering filtered from the kitchen. 

“Do you have some sort of excuse this time, Alec?” Max demanded. 

He huffed and leaned his elbows against the desk. “Do you want to find out what happened with the car bomb? I might have a lead.” 

She blinked. “Okay. What do you have?” 

Alec looked back at the computer. “You ready there, buddy?” 

“What do you need?” Logan asked, all business. 

“Can you get any hover drone or security camera footage of the time of the explosion? From the front gate and then about a block in every direction.” 

“What am I looking for?” Logan had already shifted towards a different computer, his fingers rattling across the keys. 

“A man, average height and build, dark overcoat. He would have been hanging around just behind the National Guard barrier after the explosion, and probably before.” 

“Your mystery Familiar?” Max asked. 

Alec nodded. “Tika said she’d seen someone with a similar description while the team was out on the run; Cap started acting weird after that.” 

“Who do you think he is?” Logan asked; his eyes were still on his computer, searching. 

“Trouble, if there is a connection between what Tika and I saw. How, I have no idea.” 

“This might take me a bit – the security on the camera footage got upped a bit recently; the government is paranoid about freedom fighter hackers, it would seem,” Logan punched a few keys and frowned. 

“Oh, but you’re the best hacker we know,” Alec deadpanned.

Logan wasn’t sure if there was actually a complement mixed in with the patronizing tone so he just focused on his task. 

“How are Spruce and Tika?” Max asked after a moment, when it was clear that Logan was busy and Alec wasn’t going anywhere; and she was honestly interested, they were her people after all. 

“Healing and dealing,” he replied shortly. “Tika might take a bit longer, but Spruce is raring to get to evasive driving training.” A grin pulled at his lips. 

Max rolled her eyes. More times than not, such training dissolved into contests and the general sheer stupidity of boys being boys with fast toys. 

“Speaking of which,” Alec continued, “Did you and Logan sort out the car situation?” 

“We got a bit distracted.” 

“Jeeze, I leave you along for five minutes, and you forget your to-do list. How do you manage without me?”

Logan had looked up at the sound of his name and spoke up before Max could respond. “Car situation?” 

“Kinda lost our vehicles in the explosion,” Max replied.

Alec snorted. “Obviously.”

She ignored him. “We were wondering if you knew of a baddie who could donate a nice car.” 

“High end, bullet proof, tinted,” Alec added.

Logan nodded without hesitation. “Liam Sullivan has been causing some trouble. He and his Celtic Tigers’ methods in dealing with their rivals are pretty aggressive. Civilians have gotten caught in the crossfire. Get the car, and Eyes Only will make sure Sullivan knows he’s being watched. I don’t know if the vehicle is as tricked out as you would like, but it should be good.”

Alec grunted in acknowledgment. 

Max lifted an eyebrow. “Irish gangsters?” 

“We’ve tangled with the Italians; why not diversify?” 

Alec rolled his eyes. “Just don’t drive all the Celts out of Seattle. Who do you think I get all that nice scotch from?” Max and Logan glared at him. “What? I don’t deal with the big bad gangsters, so stop looking at me like that. I’m just saying – they have good taste. What about a truck?”

Logan punched a few keys and squinted at the computer screen. “The Sector Four SPD storage facility just got a nice pickup truck, impounded from some small time drug dealer.” 

“That Jordan guy still the watchman?” 

“Looks like it.” 

Alec nodded. “I can make a phone call and make sure that we’ll have that truck.” 

There was a sudden clatter of a pot as it connected with the kitchen floor. Logan winced. 

“Sorry!” Bullet called.

“When do you want them off your hands?” Max chuckled. Children were never Logan’s strong suit, and these teenaged X-series were proving to be a handful and a half. 

“I promised them dinner…” 

“I’ll have Joshua and Dalton bring ‘em here through the sewers,” Alec said suddenly. “It’ll have to wait until after dark, though. Can you handle them for another couple hours?” 

“I don’t think Joshua-” Max began, but Alec cut her off. 

“Josh knows the sewer system better than anyone. Dalton can go up top and meet the Brady Bunch. That way, they’ll know that the big guy won’t eat them, either.” 

“Oh, yeah, okay.” She’d forgotten that not all the X-series were familiar with the unique looks of the transhumans. TC had gone through some rocky stages initially, but it passed. “I’m sure the big fella’ll be glad to help.” 

There was another crash and muffled apology. 

“Are you sure they’re X-series?” Logan asked pitifully. 

Alec snickered. “I hope you didn’t bring out the good china for them.” He stepped away from the desk and headed for the door. “Gotta go. Mole’s upped security, and I got put on sentry rotation.” 

“What did you do to tick him off this time?” Max chuckled. Technically, Alec was higher ranking than the lizard-man, but when it came to security, no one questioned Mole’s judgment or decisions. There were usually repercussions. 

“I don’t know – it’s not my fault he’s running out of cigars. Which is why we need that car and truck.” He waved at the laptop. “You two sort out a time and location and let me know. I’ll sort out a few people to pick it up.”

“You mean, you and whichever R and T’er begs the most will go,” Max said, dry as a bone. 

“Basically.” The door shut behind him, but not before he called, “And soon, okay?”

Max sighed with frustration and relief. “If he wasn’t so useful…” she muttered. 

“Yeah,” Logan said. 

They sat in an awkward silence, the sounds of TC and the hungry house guests filling in the gaps. 

“It’s too bad,” Logan began as Max started to say, “Maybe I could…” Logan waved a hand. “You go first.” 

“Maybe I could order Alec to let me come along and get this car. We could swing by your place and visit.” 

A corner of Logan’s mouth ticked down in a frown. “I doubt Alec really wants to visit me.” Then his face softened. “But I’d like to have an actual face to face conversation with you again.” 

“Yeah, this camera stuff isn’t much fun. I’ll work something out,” she allows. “What were you going to say?” 

“What? Oh,” Logan shifted, almost as if embarrassed. “I was just thinking it’s too bad you all have to resort to black market trading and thievery yet.”

She just managed to restrain an eye roll. “Isn’t that the way everyone gets by?”

“Yes,” he allowed, “but hearing that transgenics are stealing and therefor making a problem of themselves isn’t going to warm public sentiment.” 

“If they’d stop treating us like animals, we wouldn’t have to steal!” Max snapped. It was something she had long considered and debated over. But with no other option to keep her people healthy (if not happy) what other choice did she have? 

Logan put his hands up in a placating gesture. “I know. I was just seeing it from the point of view of someone outside of TC.” 

“You are someone outside of TC.”

“Only by location, and that not entirely by choice,” he said softly; his fingers strayed up to touch the computer screen as if he could reach through it to her. 

She smiled, but it was halfhearted. They were no closer to a cure than before the siege, nor had they actually talked about their attempted and rather one sided break up. There hadn’t been time, initially, and later neither of them wanted to bring it up. They’d moved on, but the shadow still lingered on the edges of words and frosted glances. At least on her part; she still could not live with the idea of being the cause of his death; no matter how many times Logan reassured her he would put no blame on her. 

“Bugler, honestly-” Fixit cried over the high pitch chime of a handful of silverware on linoleum. 

“I’d better go check on them,” Logan sighed. 

Max allowed another small smile. “Dalton will be there in a few hours, you’ll all be fine.” 

“I’m not so sure,” Logan hazarded. “Bye, Max. Take care of yourself.” 

“You too.” 

“Always.” 

The computer screen flickered and Logan’s side of the video chat went black. Max sighed and punched a button; her laptop chimed and went to sleep. She closed it and pushed it out of the way to cradle her head in her arms. Why was all of this so hard? 

In the control room, Alec spotted Joshua as the transhuman walked in from outside. “Hey big guy,” he called. 

“Hey Alec,” he replied, a grin lighting his doggy face. Then he sobered. “Mole is looking for you. Says Alec is late and he’ll turn you into boots if you get later.” 

“His watch is set five minutes faster than everybody else’s,” Alec replied, lip curling in disgust. “And he does it on purpose to mess with the rest of us. Anyway, I’ve got a job for you.” 

Joshua tipped his head. “Does Max know about this job?” 

“Yes, she does. And she still doesn’t need to know about that trip we made out to get a TV for you.”

“Alec wanted the TV, not Joshua.” 

“Whatever, roomie, you wanted it too, don’t deny it.” Alec and Joshua had ended up as roommates again in TC, while renovations were underway to get more places livable. Joshua still complained about the noise of the TV and Alec muttered about dangerous paint fumes, but it was fine. Alec was rarely ever there, and Joshua had his own studio area to paint in if he wanted. 

“What’s this job?” Joshua asked. 

“Logan ran into some X-6’s and an X-8. They’re at his place, but he thinks they’ll be happier here. Well, he’ll be happier with them here,” he smirked. “You and Dalton take the sewers and bring them back. Max agreed.” 

Joshua nodded eagerly. “Good. Joshua get out, help. Dalton is a good kid, too.” 

“Yeah, he is,” Alec agreed. The kid’s scrounging abilities had been fantastic before Alec had trained him. Now, he was one of the best of his Raid and Traders, though his age prevented him from leading a team. Ability aside, Alec knew no X-5 was going to take orders from an X-6.

“When do we go?” 

“Try to get to Logan’s place after dark; just send Dalton up to get them. No big deal.” 

Joshua smiled again. “I’ll go find Dalton.” Then he added. “You find Mole. Boots.”

“ _I’ll_ turn that oversized lizard into boots,” Alec muttered. “Let me know when you’re back with the kids, all right?” 

“Okay.” Joshua hurried further into the building. 

Alec flicked the collar of his jacket higher and snatched a rifle from the wall. If he spotted that Familiar within shooting distance, he’d ask questions later. 

He found Mole on the roof, standing next to the flagpole. The fading afternoon was grey and cold, but at least there wasn’t any rain. The transhuman had a shotgun hanging in the crook of one arm, and his cigar sent a wisp of smoke out into the air. 

“You’re gonna run out faster if you keep smoking ‘em like that,” Alec said as he stopped next to Mole. 

“Don’t do any good sittin’ in the box,” Mole replied. 

Alec smirked in agreement. “They’re on the list for the next R and T, right after medical supplies.” 

“Good.” He chomped on the cigar, and shifted to look past the gate, where the National Guardsmen were changing shifts of their watch. Seattle’s city life, such as it was near the toxic home of the transgenics continued as usual. 

The wind rose and thin icy fangs drove their way through Alec’s jacket. He hunched his shoulders; he could withstand cold well enough when he wanted, but at the moment he was just annoyed. 

“So, I’ve got your smokes on the way – want to tell me why I’m stuck on Ordinary watching duty?” 

Mole snorted. “You’ve got such a high opinion of yourself, princess. I’ve got anyone with cat eyes or bat eyes out here for night watch. I might be good for a lot of things, but seeing detail at night ain’t one of ‘em.” 

“Alright, alright,” Alec muttered. “You got Max on rotation?” 

“Does it look like I have a death wish?” Mole shot back. “Our brave leader’s got enough on her plate, even if she doesn’t sleep.” 

“Yeah well, I _do_ sleep, and it’s not like I don’t have a million things to do,” Alec groused, but he shifted his stance to one of relaxed readiness. 

“I always knew they made you X-5’s soft.” 

“How do you even operate in Seattle?” Alec shot back. “The lack of sun, the cold…” 

“Says the cat. How’s the rain treating you?”

He snorted and peered out over the streets. “Did you notice anything last night?” 

“You mean other than the normal hassle and panic that a car bomb tends to bring on? Nah. You lookin’ for something special?” 

Alec shrugged, but relented after a moment. He gave Mole the description of the mystery man, and his suspicions of White’s involvement in the bombing. Tika’s supporting evidence made him feel better about his own sanity. There was no way he was going to admit the Psy-Ops connection and how nervous it made him to Mole, though; it was one thing to let it slip to Max, considering her own past, but he wasn’t about to lose face in front of TC’s head of security. 

The flag snapped above them as the big transhuman digested the information. Then he grunted. “White, huh? Figured he’d be back eventually.” 

“That nasty of a bastard always has at least one comeback,” Alec agreed. 

Mole grunted in agreement. Then he slung the shotgun up onto his shoulder. “I’m gonna make a round to all the sentries. Don’t fall asleep.” 

“You goin’ to give the description to everyone?” It was less a question and more of a strong suggestion. There was no real proof that the man he’d seen was involved, but it was better to be on the lookout than to be surprised again. 

“Might as well,” Mole agreed. 

Alec nodded. “Just don’t start a panic or a riot by mentioning White.” 

“I’ll worry about my people; you worry about your pretty little self.”

“So glad you care.” 

Mole tromped off with a snort, and Alec settled in for his watch. There was no real way to get out of the wind on the roof top, so he didn’t even bother. The roof itself was filthy, but the ledge was decent. He parked himself near a corner, back to the wind, one foot resting against the opposite side, knee even with the corner. The rifle rested across his thigh, relaxed but within easy reach. The position gave him a good view of the courtyard and the streets beyond the gate. 

A siren wailed somewhere, and Alec automatically turned towards it, eyes narrowed as he calculated the distance and speed. He then dismissed it equally as fast. He blinked and looked away; Mole strode across the courtyard below him. The silhouettes of the other sentries showed against the grey sky, recognizable by stance and shape. The Ordinary soldiers patrolled, listless, outside the gates. With a whistle, the wind gusted and rocked him slightly on his perch. 

He shook his head. Here they all were, in the limbo of Max’s dream to make them respectable citizens. Yet, with the active peace talks stalled and no real plans on either side to continue them soon, they still had to live. The most effective methods were the shadiest, and drove them further back into the shape of soldiers that Max was struggling to push away. 

It wasn’t like he particularly enjoyed being a soldier, at least not the brainwashed machine variety that Manticore preferred. At the same time, he could not ignore the fact that he was a trained killer, as were most of the X-5’s. And he had - generally - been good at his job. There was a certain comfort in the military order, even the lax version maintained in TC, which kept everyone happy. Unlike for Max, Manticore had been home and reality for most of the transgenics’ lives. The X-5’s, with their training and experience for field and solo missions, had an easier time adjusting to the world outside, but the younger X-series, and the transhumans were not as lucky.

He pushed aside the pointless thoughts and split his attention between watching the activity around TC and recalling as many exact details of the mystery Familiar as he could. There was not much to go on. His eidetic memory should have been able to recall details even from the brief glimpse he got, yet he got nothing more than his first impression. Anything further was lost in the sudden, stabbing pain of a red light. 

Alec physically twitched away from the memory of Psy-Ops and took a shaky breath. Every time he tried to recall the man, memories leaked through instead. Even thinking about the explosion had brought a flood of images and feelings he thought he had gotten over. He had made his peace with Rachel’s memory, but that didn’t mean everything had healed smoothly. 

Drunken shouts echoed from the streets. Alec turned towards it, the rifle lifting. There were no more burning X’s around the fences, but loiters couldn’t be kept away entirely. As the National Guardsmen moved to send the revelers on their way, Alec lowered the rifle. It took a moment to release the tension thrilling through his muscles and he smirked as he resettled on the ledge. Soldier indeed. 

The rest of his watch passed without incident, and it was several hours after dark when his replacement finally arrived. 

“Alec,” trilled the transhuman woman; the large amount of bat in her cocktail was pretty obvious. 

He unfolded from his seat and stretched. “Hey Barb,” he greeted her with a grin; it continuously amused him that the bat girl had ended up with the name from the comics. 

“Mole says you can go back to your pampering, princess,” she said. 

“Does he know how many of you are repeating his words verbatim?” he wondered and then paused. “Do you repeat what I say back to him?” 

Barb just grinned, teeth and unnaturally bright eyes flashing in the dark. 

Alec groaned. “He’s gonna have my ass on sentry duty forever. Do you want the rifle?” 

She shook her head. He slipped the strap over his shoulder with a shrug and trotted across the roof, leaving the screaming wind and dark memories. There was an open bottle of cheap scotch in his apartment; it wouldn’t do much other than burn going down, but it would still be good company at the moment.


	3. Part 3

**Part Three**

The next morning, Alec arrived at the mess hall to the lively and obnoxious chatter of young voices. Zero, Fixit, Bullet and Bugler had arrived in TC without a hitch, and he’d heard the whole story from Joshua the night before. Now, the youngsters were busy socializing with other X-6’s and X-8’s. 

He grimaced, the ache behind his eyes pounding an uneven beat with the shrill laughter around him. A few hours of sleep out of the night had done him more harm than good, but it was manageable. It was preferable to stay awake when the red flash of a remembered laser showed up every time he closed his eyes. 

Max arrived just as he sat down with some toast and coffee. She went over to the kids first; from the way they sobered up, Alec guessed that she was reminding them that they had other jobs besides gossiping. When Max started ruffling Bulger’s now shaggy hair, Alec rolled his eyes and then shut them, his attention on the warm, rich sent of the steaming cup of coffee in front of him. There was the scuff of a moving chair and the rustle of clothing as Max sat down across from him, but he didn’t look up. 

“Alec.” 

“Yeah, that’s me,” he muttered. Eyes still shut, he sipped at the coffee. 

He could almost hear her frown. “Logan sent that video footage you wanted,” she offered. 

“Good,” he said and took another drink. 

Max huffed. “If I didn’t know Manticore’s genetic enhancements made it impossible, I’d think you were hung over.”

Alec cracked open an eye. “You and Logan figure out a good time to boost the vehicles?” he asked instead of answering. 

She frowned, but replied, “I figured tomorrow. No point waiting longer. Did you decide who to take with you?” 

“Not yet.” 

“Well, I’ll save you the trouble. It’s me.”

The statement roused him more than the caffeine ever had hopes of doing. “Didn’t we just have this talk about how you have to be a leader? Going out on a raid against mobsters is not the way to do it. Not to mention everyone knows your face.” Thus far, Alec had remained out of the camera’s eye, and he preferred it that way; his job was much easier if certain customers didn’t recognize him as a transgenic. 

“I’m sick of sitting around TC, going to meetings. I need an adrenaline rush.”

“And worrying over and caring for your people doesn’t give you enough of one?” he shot back. Even as the words left his mouth, he wondered when he had become so responsible and concerned. 

Max managed to keep the whine out of her tone, but not by much. “Alec, _please_. I need to clear my head. One little grand theft auto, and I’ll be good.” 

He shook his head. “For how long? A personal day is one thing, but this?” 

“Why are you so concerned about this, anyway?” she demanded, voice rising. 

He spread his hands. “I don’t want to be stuck trying to run this place on my own if you get killed, or worse, wounded for a while.” 

“How is _that_ worse?” 

“No, you’re right,” he mused. “You’d come back to hover and chew me out one way or another.” He grinned, smug, and went back to his breakfast, purposely spewing toast crumbs towards her. 

“What if I ordered you to let me come along?” Max finally asked, as if playing a final card. 

Alec rolled his eyes. “Well, then I _must_ obey the command of our wise and brave leader.” He added around a mouthful of toast, “It’s your funeral.” 

She glared back at him, but he focused on his coffee. Fixit, or one of the other girls, loosed a high, shrill giggle. He winced. 

“What’s up with you anyway?” she demanded. 

“Headache.” His hope was that once he got away from the teenaged mutant gigglers it would ease up. 

Max’s brows came down in concern, but she just said briskly, “Man up, soldier.” 

Alec made a face. 

“We need to set up the logistics of this repo business, and Mole wants to go over some security issues.” 

He gave a quiet sigh. “When?” 

Max decided to take some pity on him. “This afternoon,” she decided. 

He nodded. “Those video files in your office?” When she nodded he continued, “Can I use your laptop to watch them?” 

She nodded again. If she gave him the space, hopefully he’d be less of a jerk about her involvement in the car raid. “Joshua has some new paintings to show me. That’ll take a while.” 

“Planning to decorate your office?” he asked; if Joshua had planned to sell the paintings, he would have gone to Alec first. Any other time, he went straight to the person he wanted to gift the newest masterpiece upon.

She smiled slightly. “I have one more wall in my apartment that could use a painting,” she replied. 

He stood. “Well, have fun.” With a final gulp of coffee, he left. 

Max shook her head and went to Joshua’s studio, wondering if Alec was legitimately feeling unwell, or if he was just being annoying on purpose. 

*

The lights in Max’s office were off when Alec entered, and he left them that way. The dark was soothing, and it wasn’t like he needed them; eye strain in the dark wasn’t something he had to worry about. Neither was the headache at the moment. He had been right - as soon as he left the bustle of the mess hall and bypassed the constant insanity of the control room, the pain behind his eyes eased off. He sat with a relieved sigh and flipped on the computer. 

A few minutes later, he had the video files open, each meticulously labeled with a timestamp – ten minutes before and after the explosion – as well as the location of the camera they’d been taken from. He ran them simultaneously, eyes flicking from window to window as the minutes ticked away. Nothing unusual presented itself for eight minutes. Then, a silver sedan rolled into view, and an overcoated man stepped out. 

Alec locked his eyes on the screen and growled in frustration when the angle of the camera only showed the man’s back as he walked towards TC. It wasn’t long, however, before he walked out of one camera’s eye and into another. Alec leaned closer to the screen; his hand, resting next to the computer curled into a fist. 

The man stopped a safe distance behind the National Guard picket and looked up into the camera, as if he knew he was being watched. Time and space did not matter as his eyes, black in the greyscale film, locked with Alec’s. 

Pain shot through his head, burning red. He gasped and snapped his gaze away from the image, a hand pressed against his right eye, where the agony was centered. On screen, the car exploded. 

Alec pushed the pain down, and it ebbed away with surprising ease. But the headache was back, throbbing in his temples. He shook his head and swallowed a few times. If this was his headache playing cute for attention, he didn’t like it. A few keystrokes later, and the film had skipped forward in time. The man was walking back to his car. Alec squinted at the screen as the man neared the camera. It was a profile shot, but it would be enough. 

Red pain slashed through his head again and Alec yelped, eyes slamming shut. When he opened his eyes again, the silver car drove away, the man hidden behind tinted windows. 

“What. The. Hell,” he panted. He skipped back and watched for the Familiar again. 

This time it was worse. The red was brighter; the agony shot tendrils through his head, down his neck and shoulders. Then the chill of absolute panic overwhelmed him as he felt restraints on his arms and across his chest. 

The sound of the door as it opened to admit Max snapped him out of the panic. He felt cold sweat on his face, but he ignored it. Her gaze raked over him, concern and confusion palpable, but far less terrifying than whatever the hell had just happened in his head. He swallowed sharply and smoothed his features. 

“Alec?” Max asked, uncertain. 

“The headache’s being a bitch. Could you look at the tapes and get a printout of the guy? Shows up on camera three at eight minutes. Should try to ID him.” He fought to regain control of his voice, but the quaver was unmistakable. 

“Is it that bad?” she asked, pointing to his head. “Doc Fraiser might have something for it.” 

He shook his head once. “Nah. I’ll just sleep it off.” He stood and went for the door, stumbled, but righted himself. 

Max frowned. “Are you sure it’s just a headache?” 

“It’s my head and it aches, so yeah. I don’t know if you noticed, but things have been a little stressful around here lately,” he snarled. 

“Fine,” she snapped back, her own weariness breaking through. “Go have a sick day. I need you in top form tomorrow to get that car and truck. I have addresses and times.” 

“Goodie,” he muttered and made his escape.

In his apartment, Alec collapsed onto the battered couch in front of the TV. The remote found its way into his hand and flipped to the first channel with halfway decent reception on instinct. Senseless noise filled the room – though at a lower level than Alec would have liked, as per an agreement with Joshua – and he let it filter into his head as he tried to forget that he was honestly scared. 

There was very little that frightened him, or most transgenics, really. Being captured, tortured and killed by either Ordinaries or Familiars ranked high on that list recently. Everyone had that one drill sergeant or guard that elicited a child’s automatic flinch of fear. Yet, no matter where they had been from in Manticore or what they had been trained to do, every transgenic was afraid of Psy-Ops. And they all did what they’d had to do to survive it – they respected it, feared it and didn’t think about it. 

Ignoring Psy-Ops was fairly easy to do once out of Manticore. The threat had been removed, as simple as that. It was made even easier by the fact that, thus far, no Psy-Ops transgenics – like Mia – had found their way to Terminal City. Their particular skill sets undoubtedly helped them blend better than others. That, or they knew their lot would be better out with the Ordinaries than with the people they had helped torture. Even the reports of the things White had done to the captured transgenics had not inspired the same level of fear that Psy-Ops continued to hold. 

A bright red light tore through the darkness, ripped through his thoughts. Alec jumped, breath snapping in with a startled hiss. The music video dancing across the TV screen included an excessive amount of flashing colored lights. It was dark in the room save for the television, and he realized the day had disappeared. A spot of cold settled in his gut; lost hours and black spots were another legacy Psy-Ops had left behind and he hated whenever anything caused blackouts because of it. He shook his head sharply, but it did little to dispel the lingering cold tang of the memories. 

Who or whatever this Familiar was, he had a connection to Psy-Ops. He refused to think about how he knew it, but he did. And he wasn’t sure how he was going to manage to get to the bottom of the problem with phantom pains haunting him. He’d survived the worst Psy-Ops could throw at him three times, but he had no desire to relive any of those experiences, or what he had become in order to survive. 

The lights on the television strobed again, and he jammed the power button down, plastic creaking in his grip. The sharp rattle of the remote against the wall where he threw it echoed behind him as he strode towards his bedroom. He knew he wouldn’t sleep well, if at all, but he had no desire to see Joshua when the dog boy returned from his studio. The inevitable question of, “You alright?” would be asked, and Alec just didn’t have the energy to deal with it. 

There were some things even good friends could never understand. 

*

“What are you _wearing_?” Alec nearly dropped the car theft notes he was holding. 

Morning had come too soon and not fast enough; as he’d predicted, sleep had been painfully elusive, and two nights of next to no sleep was catching up with him. The headache throbbed with a nice steady beat across his temples. However, the sight of Max as she walked Command canceled out the pain with utter shock. 

She had a blonde, chin length wig on, a tight fitting, low cut shirt and leather skirt all in black, heels and fishnets. Heavy makeup shifted the shape of her eyes and altered the angle of her mouth but in no way detracted. She had either lost her mind, or had a moonlighting gig that she’d never shared. 

“It’s a disguise,” she shot back, “since everyone apparently knows my face.” 

Alec managed to close his mouth. “When you said distract the gangsters, I didn’t think you meant like _that_. Not that I mind.” He grinned.

She glared at him, though the effect was ruined by her makeup. “Shut up. It’ll be effective.”

He shook his head, still grinning. “Where did you get that outfit anyway? I mean, you’ve sorta been holding out…”

This time she punched him on the shoulder. “I used it in a job for Eyes Only – it actually was with the Italian mobsters,” she added, reminiscent. “Anyway, I had it buried in a box of my stuff, and thought it would be useful.” 

Alec raised an eyebrow and inspected her outfit again. “If you break an ankle with those shoes, I’m getting the car out of there first, just so you know.” 

“Max!” Bullet’s panicked voice rose over the ordinary tumult. He sprinted across the room, a cellphone clutched in his hand. His eyes bugged out at the sight of Max’s new look but he recovered quickly. “It’s Ralph,” he panted. “She’s in Seattle.” 

He was obviously shaken, and Max took charge, snatching the phone away from him. “Ralph? This is Max. What’s your SITREP?” 

“Max?” Her voice was shaky and thick with tears. “I don’t know, I got away, but I don’t know where I am, my leg won’t work, I’m sorry,” she babbled, the words tumbling out faster and faster.

“Pull yourself together, soldier!” Max ordered, with a twinge of guilt. She hated being the drill sergeant, but it was the fastest way to get through to her people when things went sideways. “Look around, give me some street signs, store names, something.”

Ralph babbled out a string of names and numbers, her voice steadying as she went but it was still pinched in pain and fear. Alec moved closer and tipped his ear towards the phone. 

“Sounds like Sector Four,” he observed. “At least we’re heading out to the area.” 

Max nodded absently. “Ralph, stay where you are, we’ll come and get you. Just stay out of the way and don’t draw attention to yourself.” 

“Yes ma’am,” the X-6 said unsteadily. 

“Don’t hang up just yet. Dix, Luke, here!” Max tossed the phone up to them. “Trace the call, get me an exact location.” She looked over at Alec. “Gear up.” 

“You’re not expecting me to get a wig, are you?” He plucked his favorite sawed off shot gun from the wall.

“No amount of makeup would improve your looks.” 

“Jealous, that’s what you are,” Alec muttered as he tucked a handgun into his waistband. 

Bullet stepped up to them eagerly. “I’m coming along, too.” 

Max shook her head firmly. “No, you’re not. You’re too upset. Alec and I can handle this.” 

“Yeah, don’t worry kid, we’ll bring your girlfriend back,” Alec clapped his hand on Bullet’s shoulder. 

He gaped a little. “I – we – just bring her back, please,” he ended desperately. 

“Don’t worry, we will,” Max said. “Luke, do we have a location?”

“College Street and Rainier,” he called back, pointing at the red dot blinking on the maps displayed on the monitors. 

“Bullet, get your phone back and stay on the line with her and make sure she’s fine. Page me or call Alec if she needs to change location.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied and nearly blurred up the stairs to where Dix still held his cell phone. 

“Alright,” Alec said as they left Command at a jog and headed for the sewers. “Car theft, rescuing a damsel in distress… enough excitement for you, Max?”

“I’ll let you know.”

*

It didn’t take long to reach their first goal, the stomping grounds of the Celtic Tigers on the far edge of Sector Four, on the shores of Lake Washington. The plan was to get the vehicles and then pick up Ralph on the way back. The rescue of the girl increased the risk of the trip by giving more time to the Irish gangsters to realize that their car was missing. But Max saw no harm in it; Ralph was safe for the moment where she was, and there was no need to risk sending another team to fetch her. 

“Ah, there she is,” Alec whispered a few minutes after leaving the sewers behind; he rested his shoulder against the building as he peeked out of the alley. Logan’s intel had been good, and led them to the lot where Liam Sullivan’s Dodge Charger was parked. The mob boss was so confident on his own home turf that he didn’t even bother to put it in a garage while he was at the office. Which obviously made this job that much easier. 

“It’s a car, not a woman,” Max muttered. She checked her makeup with her compact mirror. Luckily the dampness of the sewers hadn’t smudged her work; waterproof makeup was a lifesaver. 

Alec just shook his head. “You’ll never understand.” He looked back at the car. “It’s too bad we’ll have to redo the paint job. I like that red.” 

“So does everyone else when they’re looking for a stolen car of that color. Let’s go.” She fluffed her wig and strode out down the street. 

He shook his head slightly as he watched her go, but a grin tugged up one side of his mouth. It was the genetically given panther slink that gave her the head turning walk, he decided. He was sure Max occasionally forgot she was an attractive looking female, especially when there was a mission happening. Luckily, she was also a decent actress. Thus, she did justice to the little black skirt and the fishnets. Her part of the mission was to be out on the street and keep an eye out for anyone who might be interested in stopping Alec from taking the car and then distract them. 

The grin didn’t leave as he slipped out of the alley towards the other girl demanding his attention. He ran his fingers lightly over the polished chrome and bright paint before reaching into his messenger bag for a Slim Jim. The tool slid along the window and settled into place without a hitch; a few adjustments, a tug, and the door popped open. 

“You’re a cocky bastard, Sullivan. No alarm?” Alec muttered as he slipped inside the car. 

Leather seats, a fancy stereo and all the finest gadgets that a racketeering, gambling ring running, bootlegging mob boss would want and need greeted him. A quick search produced a set of spare keys, not so cleverly hidden in a cup holder. 

“Are you really this stupid? You _deserve_ to have this car taken away.” He started the engine and grinned as it growled, power thrumming up through the seat and steering wheel. “Whoa. _Nice_.” Then he shook his head slightly and put the car in gear. “I love my bike, I really do,” he reminded himself. 

He eased it out of the lot, taking care not to rev the engine. Since the mission was only half over, they had to avoid attention, at least until Ralph was retrieved. Max was down the block, her shoulders set against a streetlight, her legs on display. Her eyes were sharp and focused, though, as she scanned the streets for any sign of the Irish gangsters. Alec pulled the car next to her, and rolled down the window. 

“Hey pretty lady, wanna ride?” he leered, the effect ruined by his overly excited grin as the car continued its powerful rumble. 

Max rolled her eyes. “Really, Alec?” She hurried to the passenger side and slid in; he snatched up his bag and set it between them carefully. 

“What?” he demanded as he rolled up the window. “I thought you looked lonely there on the corner by yourself.” 

She punched him on the shoulder. 

“Ouch! Lonely, but so very, very violent!” 

“Can we go? Ralph is waiting.” 

“All right, all right. Where was it again?”

“College and Rainier.” 

“No problem.” 

The car roared away with a bit more enthusiasm than Max would have liked, but by the time anyone would have noticed, they were long gone. 

Alec called back to base and got Ralph’s exact location. She’d hunkered down in an alley near a little café. So far, no one had paid her much attention; Sector Four wasn’t high class enough to escape the reality of the homeless and beggars. The car made good time, even though Alec had to find the happy medium of speed and casualness to avoid attention of the cops and still reach Ralph before someone did take interest in her. Nevertheless, Max was twitching with impatience before they arrived. 

Ralph was huddled against the wall of a building, one leg extended in front of her, arms wrapped around her middle as if cold. She jumped and tensed as the loud red car stopped and blocked off her exit; a flash of pain showed on her face as she stood quickly, and her weight settled on her left leg. 

Max rolled down her window, the blonde wig bright even in Seattle’s grey light. Ralph’s eyes went even wider as she went into full fight or flight mode. 

“Ralph! It’s Max!” 

“Max?” she replied uncertainly. She shifted her stance, ready to run, and her right leg trembled with the weight. 

With a frustrated sigh, Alec leaned across the car and caught the girl’s eye. “Come on; Bullet and your buddies are waiting.” 

Ralph went limp with relief, finally recognizing the two X-5’s. Her bad leg buckled; Max sprang out of the car and caught her under the arm before she could hit the ground. 

“Let’s get you to TC and the med wing, okay?” she said. Somehow, she managed to put Ralph and herself into the back seat – which wasn’t really focused on passenger leg room.

“All aboard,” Alec quipped and pulled out into traffic once again. 

A few awkward silent moments passed before Ralph spoke. “Nice ride.” 

Alec grinned. “She’s great, isn’t she?” 

“Yeah, and guess who gets to drive ‘her’ to TC when someone else has to boost the truck?”

“Oh, come on Max! _You_ could get the truck.”

She shook her head, almost triumphant. “That’s not what the mission brief said. You get the truck, and follow me and the car back home. _You_ were the one who wanted to show off your carjacking skills. Besides, I’m sticking with Ralph and it’s probably best not to move her and her leg too much.” She paused and looked at the X-6, huddled against the window. “What happened, anyway?”

“I don’t know, it just won’t work right and hurts.” 

“Let me see.” 

Max managed to maneuver Ralph’s leg onto her lap and roll the grey running pants up to her knee. No marks, swelling or bruises were visible. Yet, when Max prodded along the calf and slowly bent it at the knee, Ralph bit back a yelp and frustrated, frightened tears. She wrapped her arms tighter around her middle. 

“I’m sure Doc Fraiser will be able to fix you up in no time,” she reassured the girl. 

“So what’s your story?” Alec asked. “You go missing for a couple weeks, and show up in Seattle with a bum leg?” 

Ralph nodded shakily, her face pale and going a bit green. “Yeah, that’s about it.” She swallowed hard. 

“ _Please_ don’t live up to your name in this car – it’s new,” Alec muttered. 

Max spoke over his complaint. “You don’t remember anything?” 

She shook her head. “I remember getting grabbed, thrown into a van … and then … it’s just glimpses, feelings.” 

“Anything you have can help,” Max urged. 

“It was like-” her voice broke and she took a deep breath before she continued. “It was like Psy-Ops.” 

Max glanced up at Alec, her mind leaping back to their conversation after the explosion. His face was carefully neutral and unmoving, except for his jaw; bone and muscle jumped under the skin as he ground his teeth against whatever thoughts roiled through his head. 

“Do you remember _anyone_ \- from before or after?” he asked after a moment, his voice carefully modulated. 

“The guys who jumped me had ski masks,” Ralph offered.

Alec sighed. “Great. Let’s get the truck and get back.”

*

“You said you’d make a few call to get this truck – what sorta deal do you have this time?” Max asked as Alec eased the car to a stop a few blocks from the Sector Four SPD storage unit.

He held up his messenger bag with a grin. “Jordan, the guy that takes the processed vehicles and parks them, likes his job, but doesn’t mind supplementing his income. He’s also a Marvel comic fan – and the classic comics can bring in a lot of dough.” The door was open and shut before Max could make a comment.

“Seriously,” Max muttered as she extracted herself from the narrow confines of the back seat and clamored behind the wheel. “Don’t worry, he won’t be long,” she reassured Ralph, watching the girl in the rearview mirror. “Alec is annoying, but he is good at his job.” 

Ralph bobbed her head in a nod, but didn’t say anything. Max bit her lip and turned her attention back to the street; Alec slipped through the sparse foot traffic, confident and eager. She knew this sort of scrounging and dealing was his job for TC, yet he never quite seemed to tire of it. That or he was an even better actor than she gave him credit for. With an impatient sigh, she turned to look at Ralph. 

“So, Bullet and the others were telling me about all the adventures you had in Canada. They said you were trying out bird watching…”

“Feline DNA – they fascinated me in some way,” Ralph replied with a slight smile and the conversation turned toward safe and rather pointless chatter. 

Everyone in Seattle was on the take, someway, somehow. It just depended on their preferred poison and who they’d deal with. And Alec used this information to his full advantage, with better than average results. Today was no different. 

A quick walk brought him a block closer to the storage facility. He scanned the street, eyes narrowed and calculating; the few civilians loitering didn’t even give him a second glance. Satisfied, he stepped inside a battered phone booth. 

Rust flaked off the hinges as he tugged open the small metal box next to the broken phone, the padlock rattling quietly against the side. The box itself was old and had once housed phonebooks, but the lock was relatively new, with only a few nicks and scratches marring the surface. With another glance at the street, Alec deposited the comic books – all carefully wrapped in plastic sleeves – in the box and locked it again. Jordan would collect them when he had the chance. Step one done, he headed down the block again. 

The mission timing, even with the sudden addition of Ralph’s pick up, had set the time to boost the truck at noon, when most of the crew at the storage facility would be out to lunch. Alec pulled out his cell phone and feigned a search for signal; a few seconds confirmed that the truck was where it was supposed to be and there was minimal activity in and around the building. He snapped the phone shut with a smirk and crossed the street. 

Another padlock greeted him at the gate, but it popped open at the brush of his hand, the faulty equipment and willing employee exploited to their fullest potential. The truck, a surprisingly plain black affair, was parked not ten feet from the street. Alec stooped and found the keys where they had “fallen” to the ground and settled just behind the front wheel. He tossed them into the air and caught them as he turned back to the gate and pushed it open. 

Instead of starting the truck inside the lot, he just put it into neutral; the slight slope down to the street helped as he gave a shove against the tailgate. The truck rolled slow and steady out of the impound lot, gravel crunching quietly under the tires. Alec quickly shut the gate and locked it properly behind him and hopped behind the wheel. The engine roared to life as he rolled off the curb. 

“Let’s go!” Alec called as he rolled past Max and the Charger; the truck’s power wasn’t just for show, though the lack of a muffler made it feel that much more terrifying.

“Annoying, but efficient,” Max muttered as she followed.

*

“Come on, forgery, don’t fail me now,” Alec muttered, tapping the sector pass against the steering wheel as the line of vehicles approached the check point. 

Jam Pony sector passes were no longer a viable option, considering the messenger service’s unintentional connection to the transgenics. Max’s occasional conversations with Original Cindy kept them informed of the activities around their former work place; the bike messengers were under a surprisingly severe watch. With that in mind, Alec had a number of inconspicuous and mundane sector passes made by a top end forger on Logan’s contact list. Thus far, they had worked without a problem, but he had no desire to have a first time when they didn’t. 

Sector police prowled down the line, thicker than ever before. Alec fidgeted. There were always more cops around the check points leading into Sector Seven – to keep an eye on those who might have contact with Terminal City – yet today it bothered him. The red car in his rearview mirror drew his eyes. 

“That’s right, Max, all fun and games out on R and T’s,” he muttered as the sector police worked their way towards her. It wasn’t that he didn’t worry about his team members, and he knew that Max could take care of herself, he just felt extra responsible to get her back to TC in one piece. He really didn’t want to face the consequences if he didn’t; leadership seriously wasn’t his thing. Manticore had trained him to be a solo operative, or at most the leader of a small team. Leadership over large groups was not his preferred flavor; even his job as head scrounger was becoming burdensome as TC grew. 

The car ahead of him moved through the gate and the guard waved Alec forward. “Hope you’re enjoying yourself, Max,” he added to the red car. 

Max was equally uneasy as she watched the black pickup get swarmed by sector police. A hand reached up and tugged on her wig and she forced herself to stop before she pulled the thing off. Alec leaned out of the window, grinning and chatting easily. She was sure his sector pass was inspected in every possible way short of DNA testing before they were satisfied. The gate swung open and Alec tossed a lazy salute to the cops. Max put the car in gear and rolled up to the check point. 

“Just keep calm,” she said, though if it was a reassurance to Ralph or a reminder to herself, she was honestly unsure. She had to get out in the field more often before her nerve disappeared entirely.

“Sector pass and business in Sector Seven,” the cop at her window drawled. “Oh, hello,” he added as Max smiled, slow and coy, up at him.

“Here you go,” she said and handed her sector pass to him. 

He barely glanced at the sector pass. “What’s a pretty little lady like you doing in such a big car?” 

Max realized the tinted windows prevented the cop from seeing Ralph where she huddled in the back seat. “Oh, you know, just taking it for a spin,” she said with a wink. “Gotta meet up with my boyfriend,” she added, hoping to take some of the interest out of his gaze. 

It did, but didn’t remove it entirely. “He isn’t expecting you back soon, is he?”

“I’m late already, actually,” she replied, her tone cool. 

“Too bad,” the cop muttered and waved her through.

Max sighed as Sector Seven in all its trashed glory appeared in front of her. “That wasn’t so bad,” she muttered, and tugged at the wig again. The thing was getting itchy. 

They were less than a mile to TC when Alec went over a speed bump and something crunched under a tire; there was a sharp pop and the steering wobbled. Alec pulled over with a snarl. 

“Great,” he growled as he jumped out and inspected the driver side wheel. Flat. “Just great.” 

The Charger rolled up behind him. Max hurried over to berate him; Ralph opened the back door and peered out, her eyes uneasy and pained. 

“It’s flat,” he told her as Max started to speak. “I know. Don’t freak out on me.” 

Her expression twisted from annoyed to humor then straight back to annoyance. “Well done, genius.” She peered over the edge of the truck bed. “And there’s no spare or tools back here.” 

“Shows how much you know,” he muttered. A tire iron and jack appeared from the cab, and the spare tire was quickly released from the space under the tailgate. He stood with a triumphant grin as the tire bounced to the ground and then froze. 

Less than a block away, bold and proud in the center of the sidewalk, stood the mystery Familiar. The man’s eyes were focused on the red car, but the headache Alec had all but forgotten about swelled behind his eyes again with a wave of red. He gasped, but pushed it down as he staggered away from the truck. 

“Alec?” Max demanded and followed his eye line. “Is that...?” she whispered as the pieces fell into place. 

“That him,” he ground out. Then he blurred towards the man. 

Max, stunned, hesitated for a few seconds. Then she raced after Alec; she’d seen the look in his eyes and it scared her. Her wig, already loosened by nervous fingers, tumbled to the ground. 

Alec was less than twenty feet from his target and Max only a few steps behind him when the man looked away from the car and at the transgenics. Alec dropped from a dead run and fell to his knees, hard. A pained cry tore out of his throat and his hands flew up and clutched his head. Max skidded to a stop and crouched next to him; panic ran sharp and cold through her. Whatever this was it was bad; Alec complained constantly, but never when it mattered. 

“Hey, hey, easy,” she soothed and grabbed him around the shoulders as he crumpled forward; his breath sawed in and out through clenched teeth and a groan tumbled out. “Alec, look at me,” she ordered, desperate for a response. 

“Lemme go,” he muttered. His muscles twitched as he struggled to pull away, but he couldn’t move, locked in a pained ball. 

A car door slammed and tires squealed. She looked up and saw a silver sedan make a sharp U-turn and disappear around a corner. If it had plates, she hadn’t seen them. 

Alec shuddered and sat up. Sweat poured down his face, and his eyes were dark and blank. “Got away, didn’t he?” he rasped. 

“Yeah,” she replied shortly. “You alright? What happened there?” 

He struggled to his feet, purposely ignoring Max’s supporting hand on his arm and the concern on her face. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” he panted. “Dammit. He was _there_ , I almost had him, the bastard.” 

“Alec, what happened?” she demanded again. 

“Headache.” His tone said he was finished with the subject, but Max refused to let it go.

“What kind of headache drops you to the ground like that?” She gripped his jacket a little tighter to keep his attention. 

“A bad one,” he shot back. “And will you let go? I can walk on my own.” 

“But you apparently can’t run.”

He jerked his arm away. “Just drop it, Max!” he said, voice harsh and raw. 

She stepped back, surprised at his intensity. “All right,” she agreed. “Let’s get back to TC, and Doc Fraiser is going to have a look at you.” 

“Max-”

“No,” she stopped him with a raised hand. “That’s no ordinary headache, and you need to get it checked out.” 

He sighed, but allowed her to propel him to towards the car. “Still gotta change the tire on the truck,” he muttered. 

“I got it.”

“Huh, I always thought girl mechanics were hot – not sure if you’ll quite fit the bill, though, Max,” he huffed around the pain. 

“Just shut up and sit down,” she ordered, with less harshness than usual. 

Max pushed him towards an abandoned milk crate on the sidewalk about halfway between the truck and the Charger. The plastic shifted under his weight, but didn’t collapse, and he called that a minor victory. He kept his eyes shut; red and white flashes of light continued to snap across his vision. 

The tire iron clanked and rattled as Max worked. She called back to Ralph, calm and reassuring. Carefully, he cracked open an eye peered out through his lashes; Max, made of shadows, swayed next to the truck, tools scattered on the ground next to her. A slow glance to the left showed him Ralph, still favoring her leg, leaning against the back end of the Charger, eyes flitting around the streets, on guard. 

The light show in Alec’s head finally faded, as did most of the headache, the pain present but not overwhelming. He shifted his legs and was suddenly reminded how his run had ended. 

“Gah,” he grunted. The knees of his jeans were shredded, as were his actual knees. Congealing blood covered the wounds and he was sure there was several pounds worth of grit in his flesh. Transgenic or not, road rash this bad _hurt_. He let out a shaky breath and looked up and away from the wreck of his knees.

Ralph twitched and Alec glanced at her, working his eyes open a little further. She jigged, anxious, and it took a moment for him to realize she was using both legs. Her face was distressed but her eyes, though they never stopped moving, were blank. Arms that had been clenched around her middle drifted away to hang by her side, and a square shape pressed an outline against the bagginess of her sweatshirt. Something showed between her clenched fingers, black and plastic. A red light blinked out of it. 

“Ralph?” Alec called; his tone was sharp, commanding but with an edge of warning.

Max looked up and took in Alec’s tense gaze locked on Ralph, the girl’s unease. The streets were strangely quiet, the very air tense. “What is it?” She put down the tire iron and trotted toward her. 

Alec saw Ralph’s hand tense and her finger move. Soldier’s instinct moved faster than thought and he was on his feet and moving before he consciously realized it. Max had just passed him; he blurred to her, grabbed her shoulders and spun her around to face him. Her lips parted and brows lowered in confusion, and Alec heard the click of the button in Ralph’s hand release. He spun around, pulling Max into a bear hug. One step was all he managed before the blast hit them. 

They flew back towards the truck, the dual forces of transgenic strength and bomb blast throwing them hard into the concrete. Alec hit the ground first, Max still in his arms. The heat of the explosion washed over them and debris started to fall even as they rolled, his arms skidding against the ground, his shoulders and back stinging from shrapnel. 

Max blinked slowly, seeing black, her ears ringing from the blast. The pain of bruises and scraped skin snapped and shot across her limbs and back. Something warm brushed across her cheek and neck; harsh gasps broke through the lingering buzz in her head. The blackness in front of her eyes swam and resolved into Alec’s leather jacket. His arms were bracketed around hers, their legs tangled. He trembled with each breath. 

“Alec, get off,” she managed, sorting out her voice and limbs; her hands fumbled for a moment and then finally pushed at his shoulders. 

He shifted away, but his eyes were wide and terrified; the shivering continued. 

She hit his shoulder to get his attention. “Alec,” she snapped. 

He took a sharp intake of breath and blinked, and then he all but scurried away from her. His eyes were shuttered; the wind shifted and blew black smoke over them and he flinched. “We need to get out of here.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her off the sidewalk. 

Any complaints Max had went ignored as he steered her to the nearest manhole cover. Sirens wailed in the near distance and spectators started to appear on the street, gaping and pointing at the smoking wreckage. 

Alec wrenched off the cover and pushed Max towards the descending ladder. “Go, now!” he ordered, and nearly stepped on her fingers in his hurry to join her as she crawled down. With a firm tug, he pulled the cover over them again and darkness swelled around them like a physical wave.

*

“Can’t you even go on a little R and T without getting on the news?” Mole’s acerbic voice greeted them before the manhole cover scraped across the pavement of a side street of TC. He looked as Alec clambered to the surface after Max. “What happened to you, princess?” 

“A car blew up at me, no big deal.” He grimaced. 

Max glanced at him and paused in shock. The confusion after the explosion had left little time for her to check his condition. Their flight back through the sewers had consisted of her running and Alec ordering her faster. His tone brooked no argument, and Max, shaken, had decided not to fight it. In the broad light of day, it was obvious that “Mr. I’m Always Alright” really wasn’t. 

His knees were still oozing blood slowly, the deep scrapes breaking open with the constant movement of simply walking. The backs of his hands were raw. Careful posture and strained motion screamed of deep contusions. He shifted under her intense scrutiny, and she saw scorch marks and cuts wrapping around from the back of his jacket and jeans; blood stained the edges of a few. And his eyes bore the telltale dark stillness of a wall, thrown up quickly in the face of pain and terror. 

Mole snorted, and she turned her attention away from Alec. 

“I know about the explosion, it’s on the news already. They’ve gotten faster,” he admitted grudgingly. “And they’ve decided to blame it on us, obviously.” 

“Ralph _did_ set it off,” Max murmured. 

“The X-6 you were going to bring back?” Mole asked. “Wow, successful mission all the way around.” 

“Someone _made_ her set it off,” Alec snapped. “I’m going to get that Familiar, one way or another.” He turned and stalked off towards Command. 

Max bit back a frustrated groan. “Alec, get checked over by the Doc. I don’t care,” she added as he stopped, shoulders tensed for a fight, “if you say you’re ‘alright’.” 

A controlled breath hissed out of his nose. “Fine.” He didn’t look at her as he turned and went towards the med wing. Then he stopped and caught her eye. “You gonna be the one to tell Bullet and that bunch about Ralph?” he asked, voice soft but almost challenging.

Cold shock ran through her gut at his words. She had forgotten about Bullet in the chaos and her own scrambled feelings and worries, and Alec knew it. She tilted her head up, jaw clenching a bit. “Yes. I’ll talk to them.” 

Alec’s eyes softened a bit and he argued, “It was my Op, you just came along.” 

“Picking up Ralph was my Op, not yours.” She didn’t look away. 

His gaze flicked away first. “All right. Break it to them as gently as you can.” He turned and walked away. 

Once he was out of sight around the corner of a building, his steps echoing from pavement and brick, Max took off at a jog towards Command.

“Hey, where’s the fire?” Mole demanded as he caught up easily. 

“I’m going to see if Luke or Logan got a hit off those pictures from the security footage. I want to get this bastard as much as Alec.” 

“Doubt it. You might want to get this guy, but not as much as him.” 

Max looked up at the big transhuman, perplexed. 

“Really?” he demanded at her confusion. “When does princess ever get really upset about stuff?” 

Max considered. Alec often used humor as a shield for anger or frustration, though his cold, calculated grin and evenly modulated tone was more unnerving than any shouting match. This Alec - upset and distressed with a darkness in his eyes was on another, far more terrifying level. “Then let’s make sure we have an ID on this guy before he gets back.”

“And what about those kids? When are you going to talk to them?” 

She took a deep breath, knowing how hard the task was going to be. “Send them to my office.”

Mole chomped on his cigar. “You really want _me_ round them up?”

“I don’t _care_ who you send, just get them to my office.” 

“They probably have it figured out already. The newscasts were pretty good.” 

Max sighed and touched her eyes, feeling the beginning of a headache. “I’ll be waiting,” was all she said. 

*

While Logan’s computer system wasn’t any more sophisticated than TC’s, he simply had more practice at finding people. They had a picture, so all it took was running it through the correct software and databases. After filling Logan in on the failed R and T, they turned to the business of identifying the Familiar. 

“Do you remember RFC?” he asked Max via web cam. 

“The fake cleanup company? What about it?” 

“I found a face match on their employee roster.” 

“It’s a fake company with an employee roster?” Max wondered sarcastically. 

“It’s a very efficient fake company,” Logan agreed. He swiveled a computer screen towards the web cam. “Look familiar?” 

“Haha,” Max muttered under her breath at the pun. The man was indeed the Familiar she and Alec had seen. “He have a name?” 

“Anthony Jones,” Logan replied. “According to the records of RFC, he was head of the human relations department.” 

“Fake company, fake name,” Mole supplied from where he lounged against the wall behind Max. 

Logan nodded in agreement, but opened several more windows on the computer screen. “I checked that, but all records I’ve managed to find indicate that it’s his real name. Fake company or not, a lot of the Familiars seem to have a connection to RFC – even White had a link through another company. I’d say we’re on pretty good standing to track this guy down. I’m sending you all related addresses and phone numbers to you now.”

Max smiled, though tension darkened the gratitude. “Thanks Logan. I don’t know what the Familiars’ game is this time, but we need to stop it.” 

He nodded. “I’ll keep an eye out for anything else that might spring up.”

“Make it a priority?” she asked. “We need to get to the bottom of this. I can’t afford – and I don’t want to see – any more of my people hurt.”

A knock cut across anything Logan might have added. 

“Come in,” Max called, and the door swung open slowly to reveal Bullet, Zero, Fixit and Bugler. From their expressions, she knew that Mole was right. The X-6’s had put the pieces together, though Bugler looked confused and a little scared. 

Bullet swallowed hard and asked, “Is it true, what the news is saying?” 

Max nodded once, slowly. “Ralph didn’t make it out,” she said quietly. 

Fixit bit her lip and blinked back tears as Bugler sniffed; the X-6 reached out and pulled the X-8 into a gentle embrace. Zero stood at attention, eyes fixed on the opposite wall, jaw working. Bullet took a shaky breath, hands fisted as he met Max’s eyes. 

“What happened?” he asked. 

“We’re not really sure. Alec is certain she didn’t do it on her own, but someone made her.” 

“Of course she wouldn’t do something like this!” Bullet exploded. “Don’t even think like that!” 

Max allowed him the tirade. She simply said when he was finished, “I know. And believe me; I _will_ get to the bottom of this.”


	4. Part 4

**Part Four**

Alec’s knuckles were white as he clung to the edge of the hospital bed. He was down to a borrowed T-shirt and his shorts, the injuries to his back and shoulders already inspected and treated. Doc Fraiser was on a stool in front of him, picking dirt out of his shredded knees. The only sound was the splash of water and occasional click of the tiny pieces of gravel in the bowl as the Doc cleaned the wounds, and Alec’s measured breathing.

She glanced up at him. His eyes were fixed on an invisible spot on the wall, but he wasn’t seeing it. Aside from answering her direct questions, he hadn’t uttered a word, either. The silence was a worrying symptom; Alec was ever the chatterbox and loud mouth of TC. He knew when to shut up and how to get his point across, but this much silence was unusual.

“Alec? I know there was an explosion, but what _happened_?”

He blinked and returned to the room. “There’s not much else to tell.”

“Then what’s the problem?” she pressed; bedside manner had never been her strongest suit.

Alec snorted, sounding almost like himself again, but his voice was flat as he spoke. “Yeah, you’re right, there is no problem. Just that we lost another kid, damn well could have lost Max, there’s still a threat to TC that doesn’t have a name, and to top it all off, I have the road rash of the century. Not a problem at all.”

She finished with his knees and looked up at him again. He was pale and trembling, which was understandable in the circumstances, but there were also dark rings under his eyes. “Have you been sleeping?”

“Is it that obvious that I missed some of my beauty sleep?” he wondered, a faint smile tugging at his lips, and some of the blankness in his eyes gave way.

Doc Fraiser bit back a smile; his mood was shifting at least. “Try to get some tonight,” she said, knowing there wasn’t much else she could do; prescription sleep meds did nothing for transgenics, and she knew there would be no way Alec would agree to take a stronger sedative. “The last thing we need is to do is set you up for seizures on top of everything else. You know full well that sleep deprivation-”

“I missed a few hours, that’s not sleep deprivation by a long shot,” he argued as he slid off of the bed, wincing as his knees bent and pulled. “I’ll be fine.”

“Do you have tryptophan in your apartment if you do start with the shakes?” she persisted.

He tugged his jeans on carefully, avoiding the holes in the knees, and stomped into his boots. “Doc, I don’t get the shakes, okay?”

“You’re X-5: you’ve had them or you will.”

“Jeeze, Doc. What’s up with the sudden care about my wellbeing?”

She shook her head. “I’m sick and tired of seeing you people come through here injured because you’re doing what you have to in order to help all of us. I don’t want to see anyone come in because of stupidity. Get some sleep tonight, or I’ll get Joshua and Mole to hold you and I’ll tranq you myself.”

Alec smirked then. “Well, if you put it like that…” When she shot him a warning glare that apparently all X-5 females had perfected in the test tube, he threw a hand in the air, surrendering.

Doc Fraiser pointed to the door. “I want to see you back tomorrow to let me check some of those burns on your back. If you end up here for another reason, I will not be happy.”

He just shrugged into his jacket with an almost apologetic smile and left.

Word about the second explosion had spread through TC like wildfire and it showed. Nerves, already stretched from the first bomb, were reaching a breaking point. Fear was palpable in the air, passed with every word, every motion. There was no out and out panic yet, the transgenics were too well trained as soldiers for that, but the potential was very real. Alec walked back from the med wing through the nearly silent turmoil of emotions. He hunched his shoulders inside his jacket, as if the scarred leather would protect him. This Familiar had to be dealt with and quickly, and Alec would willingly do it by any means necessary. It was getting personal.

The problem, obviously, was that he couldn’t get much more than a glance at the bastard’s face without feeling like he’d been stabbed through the eyes. There had to be ways around that, but he needed more intel first. Steps stiff with pain, he changed routes from his apartment to Max’s office.

The computer was still on when he opened the door, though the lights had been turned off. Either Max had been called away for crowd control – there’s no way she didn’t know about the wave of panic that was sweeping through the city by now – or had just decided to take a break. At any rate, everything she had been working on was still up on the screen.

He sat down and began to sift through the pages of digital data.

A screen capture of the Familiar appeared and he quickly reduced the window, unwilling to tempt whatever happened in his head when he studied those features. The headache, which had never really left, sent a quick stab behind his eyes as a reminder. He blinked and clicked on the next screen. The information rolled over him.

Anthony Smith. Department Head of Human Relations for RFC Environmental Clean Up and Disposal. Home address, work address, though if the company was fake, the office probably was too. A wife, Valerie Smith; daughter Lilly. Records of two other children who died at birth. Alec shuffled the pages with a few mouse clicks. It was all basic Familiar territory; Max had filled him in on the Breeding Cult and their insanity a long time ago. He kept going.

A short newspaper article caught his attention. Anthony Smith had given a talk at a college for some sort of career day it seemed. One line jumped off the page.

_Mr. Smith held his audience spellbound – rarely does one see college freshmen so intrigued by the workings of Human Relations. His presence and speaking style were almost hypnotic_.

The door opened. Max walked in with a cup of coffee and a surprised look. “What are you doing here?”

Alec gestured to the computer. “Researchin’.”

“Shouldn’t you be resting?”

“What is up with everyone thinking I’m made of glass all of a sudden?” he demanded, his face wrinkling in annoyance and confusion. “I didn’t get shot, just bruised up. And even a bullet hole isn’t enough to warrant any concern, usually.” He looked up at her, an eyebrow set at a severe angle. “What gives?”

She shrugged carefully. “You’re just looking a little rough around the edges.”

He unconsciously scrubbed the heel of one hand across his jaw, scratching at the stubble there. “Thought I’d try the rogue look,” he offered.

“Doesn’t suit you,” she replied and set the coffee down on the desk. “Did Doc Fraiser have anything to say about your headache?”

He clicked in and out of documents on the computer. “Didn’t really come up,” he said eventually. “She was more concerned about getting the gravel out of my knees before I healed around it all.”

“Alec,” Max began, but he waved a hand to cut her off.

“It isn’t bothering me right now, so I’m not worried about it.”

“It dropped you to the ground; I think you should be worried,” she said sharply. “You were complaining about how you didn’t want to run TC on your own if I get hurt; well, I can’t have you out of commission, either.”

He grinned, but it was a pale shadow of his usual expression. “Ah, Max, I didn’t know you cared so much!” When she just looked at him, he huffed a quiet sigh. “Doc wants to see me tomorrow, I’ll ask about the headache then. Satisfied?”

“Not until you actually do it,” she muttered and reclaimed her coffee, walking around to look at the computer screen. “Find out anything?”

“Just catching up on what you got,” he replied evenly. The newspaper article had been hidden from view, and he felt a surge of protectiveness towards it. A theory, without clear form, had appeared in his brain, and he had no desire to share; the Familiar was his. “I’ll let you back at it. I was supposed to call Rita for Joshua today, anyway. We’re closing a deal on a couple of his paintings.”

The eccentric but kind hearted art dealer had not been put off by Joshua’s appearance and heritage way back during the heist of _Joshua #2_. Her love of his work had meant she had been more than willing to continue her business with him, even after all the negative media on transgenics. Joshua’s work was one of the few legitimate ways TC made cash.

“Thanks,” Max said and settled into the computer chair almost before Alec was out of it. Her eyes were glued to the screen.

Alec lifted an eyebrow. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who wanted to rid the world of a particular snake cultist. “See ya.”

“Let me know how the sale goes,” Max called as the door shut behind him; her eyes flicked up from the computer screen for a moment as the latch clicked, a worried furrow etched into her brow. Then, with a few more mouse clicks, she continued her research. Alec would be fine, she reassured herself.

*

“Hey, Rita? Alec here. We still want to deal for those paintings?”

He was on his cell phone in Joshua’s studio, the dog-boy daubing paint across a canvas behind him. As usual, Rita was enthusiastic about any new paintings, and she already had several buyers in line, even if they had never seen the canvases.

After a few minutes of discussion and several more of Rita effusing praises for Joshua’s work and pondering the growth and shift in his style – “While they have obviously lost their brightness and bright eyed vision of the world, his paintings still show such a pure innocence of a world view, yet one weighed down with such knowledge of sorrow” – they finally sealed the deal.

“All right, the day after tomorrow, delivered to your studio at one thirty, and twelve thousand for the two for them. Good. Always a pleasure, Rita. Bye.” Alec closed his phone with a snap and ran a hand through his hair, scratching absently at the back of his head.

Joshua swapped brushes and paint colors. “Medium Fella feeling alright?”

Alec groaned. “Oh, not you too, Josh. I’m _fine_.” He grabbed a felt tipped marker sitting on the table in front of him. “Maybe I should just write it across my forehead, so people stop asking.”

Something crossed between a hum and a growl rose from Joshua’s throat as he turned and faced Alec. “Fine but tired and sad?”

“Okay, I’ll give you tired,” Alec allowed, unable to hold back a frown. Joshua was painfully intuitive about his friends when he wanted to be. “I’d be better if everyone just backed off and let me alone,” he added sharply.

Joshua hung his head. “Alec mad now?”

“No, I’m not mad, not at you at least,” he replied, running a hand over his face. “I’m just tired, Josh.”

“Then you should sleep,” Joshua advised.

“Too early for that,” he muttered. “Got stuff to do.” He went for the door but paused as he looked at the canvas Joshua had been working on. “What’s that one?”

“TC. After the bomb.”

Joshua’s paintings had expanded beyond his impressionism and portraits to incorporate a number of styles, but this one was of the same flavor as his first. Even after being exposed to a number of Joshua’s creative works, Alec never claimed to be able to decode the splashes of paint, even if he was given a frame of reference. This one was a bit different.

Part of it was his imagination and memory, supplying images that superimposed themselves over the paint. Part of it was simply Joshua’s ability to capture emotion with color. Grey was the predominate shade of the background, surly and dull as they swept around and over bars of black. Long jagged streaks of flame colors, reds and oranges and yellows, leapt up from the bottom. And flecked over the whole thing were bright spots of frantic colors spanning the entire spectrum. Alec could feel the fear and panic and confusion rolling off the canvas, from the skill of the artist or simply from reflecting his own feelings. He wasn’t sure which, and that bothered him; the control over his life he fought for was slipping.

“Good work, Josh,” he said after a moment, and left the studio faster than usual.

The paint brush dangling from his fingers, Joshua stood for a moment, staring at the door that Alec had all but slammed behind him in his haste to leave. Then he turned to a blank canvas and smeared streaks of red and black across it; the colors mingled and turned muddy where they overlapped but stayed bold and stark where they ran alone along the white.

*  
At the computer hub, Alec commandeered one of the laptops Luke and Dix had collected and repaired; even with all their skill, it was hard to know when a screen would just give out or a hard drive die. Extras were nice to have, and could always be traded on an R and T. And the extras were also nice when someone wanted to work in relative seclusion but didn’t have an office to hide in.

While TC’s computer geniuses and techies of various sorts were usually around at all hours of the day, by some stroke of luck, the control room was nearly empty. Dalton sat in front of the monitors, in the middle of his shift. Mole had sentries posted all along the fence around TC, as well as on the security camera feeds.

He parked himself on a chair tucked into a corner and rested his feet on the railing so his back was to the wall, booted up the laptop and punched in information about Anthony Smith. Obviously bored, Dalton spun around in his wheeled desk chair to look at Alec.

“What you up to?”

He just pointed back at the security feeds without looking up. “Work. Like you should be doing. Don’t blame me if Mole catches you distracted from the cameras.”

The teen’s face fell but he did as he was told. He must have ticked off Mole, Alec decided – the younger X-series were not the best option for surveillance work. Transgenic or not, they still had the shortened attention span of kids. A few more moments passed, and his eyes still glued to the screens, he tried again. “What kinda work?”

“Nothing you can help with,” was the terse reply.

Dalton shifted, suddenly uneasy, shot a look of alarm and hurt in Alec’s direction. Alec spotted the look and took a quiet breath; the headache had revived itself despite his claims to Max, and it obviously was ruining his mood and ability to deal with people.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. If I need help, you’ll be right at the top of the list.” There were a few moments of silence, broken by Alec’s fingers tapping across the keyboard and a pen Dalton was absently clicking. “If Mole doesn’t have you on TV duty the day after tomorrow around noon, some of Joshua’s paintings need to be delivered to Rita. It’ll be easier as a two man job.”

“All right,” Dalton declared with a grin, but managed not to look away from the monitors.

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly. Alec never moved from his chair, rarely looked up from the computer screen. Eye strain and the headache that never really went away mingled until he couldn’t tell them apart; he pushed the pain into one corner of his brain and ignored it as best he could. It was generally a useful technique, and he was able to focus for several hours without the throb in his head making the pages of text bounce and wobble on the screen. Sentry duty broke the monotony, but after those few hours in the misting rain, he went right back to the computer.

He had the intel on the target; now he had to plan the hit.

A faint tremor ran through his hands, and he wrote it off as too much caffeine, even though it was just as impossible to overdose an X-5 on coffee as it was with almost everything else.

*

Max finally made it back into her office just after lunch the next day. Duties had been triaged, and research on the Familiar, as vital as it was, had fallen to the bottom of the list. She had been so exhausted that she had even slept for a few hours. So it was with relatively surprise that she found Alec parked on the chair, feet up the desk, a laptop balanced on his lap.

He was pale, bleary and red eyed as he blinked up at her. “Oh. Dix and Luke and Mole were being too noisy out in Command,” he said, in greeting or explanation, she wasn’t sure.

“What?”

“I needed some quiet, and you weren’t in here, and the internet connection isn’t great in my apartment…”

“Yeah, I wasn’t here because I was busy and got some rest. Unlike you. You look horrible. Have you seen Doc Fraiser yet?”

He shook his head once. “Later this afternoon.”

Max frowned. An empty coffee mug and the accompanying pot sat next to him. Despite the caffeine, he still looked sluggish and tired, eyes tight. His eyes tracked over the same spot on the computer screen several times before he gave up and scrubbed a hand over his face. She noticed a faint tremor in his hand and wondered how much synthesized energy he had consumed.

“It’s not like she’s going to be horribly busy; you should go see her now,” she said. “And don’t even try to tell me your head isn’t bothering you again.”

Alec didn’t even bother with a retort. “But I made progress,” he muttered.

She stepped around him before he had a chance to close the laptop. The screen was covered with digital newspaper clippings, pictures and files. They were all of Anthony Smith. “You do realize Logan and I were working on this too, right? You didn’t need to kill yourself over it.”

“Can finally look at the bastard’s face without hurting,” Alec muttered, words beginning to slur. “Or maybe I jus’ got use’to it.”

“What?” Max demanded again, but Alec ignored her.

“I think I gotta chance at gettin’ him.”

“Alec, seriously, if you don’t get over the med wing now, I’m dragging you there myself,” she snapped.

“’m fine.” He closed the laptop and put it on her desk; his hands shook so much he nearly dropped it. Eyes blinking rapidly, he stood and swayed.

“Shut up and get moving.” She pointed to the door.

He blinked again. “Crap.” His knees buckled, and he went down.

For a second, Max swore it was some sort of tasteless joke as he hit the floor and almost bounced up again. Then she realized he was seizing.

In a flurry of shock and panic, she shoved the desk a few feet away to give him space as his arm flailed and hit the coffee mug and pot, sending them skidding across the room. She twisted around and grabbed a bottle of tryptophan out of the filing cabinet behind her, almost ripping the drawer out. A wild drumming of Alec’s shaking limbs on the ground pounded in her ears, drowning out her heartbeat.

Sprawled on the unforgiving floor, Alec continued to seize, eyes rolled back, breath ripping out in short, pained gasps. His fingers clawed at the air, head thudded against the tile.

Max stood frozen, the little orange bottle clutched in her hand. She remembered her bouts with the shakes, and her siblings fighting and sometimes failing to get past the seizures. There seemed to be two types – one where that built slowly until it was debilitating, and the other that fell like a hammer blow; she had suffered from the first and Jack had died in Manticore because of the second. It had been so long since she’d had a fit, since she’d seen anyone have one that she’d almost forgotten how terrifying it was.

Alec groaned as the spasms slowed to faint tremors and Max knelt next to him, twisting the cap off the bottle. Tryptophan at this point was probably too little too late, but it would help keep it from getting worse. Or so she hoped.

“Hey, Alec,” she soothed as his eyes rolled, unfocused.

A moment of lucidity flashed through his eyes, and Max reached out to touch his shoulder. Then his back bowed up, and he gave a muffled cry of pain. Max barely dodged a wildly swung fist as another seizure ripped through him. She backed away, knowing that there was nothing she could do, and let him ride it out.

Less than a minute later, he collapsed onto the floor, muscles lax with only the occasional twitch. His eyes roved around for a few moments, unseeing. Then, they fluttered shut, and he took a shaky but very deliberate breath.

“Wha’ happen’d?” he muttered, squinting around the room. “Why ‘m on th’ floor?”

“Because you’re a spectacular idiot and set yourself up for a seizure, that’s why!” Max cried, startled at the intensity of her voice. Alec was too, and he winced.

“Don’ be s’ loud, Max.”

“Can you stand?” she asked instead of acknowledging his request.

“Do I have to?” His words were getting clearer, eyes more focused.

“Unless you want me to drag you to the med wing…”

“I’m up.”

She grabbed a water bottle off her desk and poured a few pills out into her hand as he levered himself onto an elbow. “Take these first.”

“So many demands,” he muttered but took the tryptophan without protest. After a few moments, he managed to sit up the rest of the way, but had to pause and catch his breath. Max, impatient, got under his arms and hauled him to his feet, fingers hooked in a belt loop, his arm pulled across her shoulders.

“This is embarrassing,” he muttered.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she grunted as they maneuvered through the room and opened the door. “Unless I need blackmail material.”

He snorted, lips quirking up in a faint smirk. “Sounds more like me than you, Max.”

“Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.”

His eyebrows jumped up and lips pursed thoughtfully. “I don’t know how to respond to that without being slightly dirty, so I’ll just let your imagination go.”

“Oh my god,” Max muttered. “Shut up.”

A small shudder ran through his entire body. “Yeah. Focus on walkin’,” he muttered. He blinked rapidly. Max frowned as the shivering didn’t abate, and pulled him forward, his stride ragged and lagging as he fought to help and stay upright.

They managed to make it to the Med Wing with minimal drama. No one saw them, so Alec’s dignity was saved; there was a particular incident when his legs decided to give out and Max simply hauled him along until he got his feet sorted again, that he had no desire to share. Even with as scrambled as his brain was, some little part was keeping track of potentially embarrassing situations.

The doors to the lobby banged open with a shove of Max’s hand and Doc Fraiser looked up from her desk. Surprise, annoyance and then cool clinical calm flashed across her face.

“Don-don’t say ‘I t-told you so’,” Alec stuttered, his grin suddenly twisting into a grimace as a sharp tremor ran through him.

“Well, then you should have listened in the first place.” The Doc was already under his other arm and dragging him with Max to the nearest room. “Tryptophan?” she asked Max.

“Gave him a handful before I brought him here.”

“ _That’s_ accurate.”

“Five, to be exact,” Max snapped in reply.

“When did his symptoms start?” Doc’s clinical tone was underlain with something akin to challenge as she watched Max’s reactions.

“He hit the floor and flopped around for a couple minutes and it took about eight to get here…”

The two women managed to wrangle Alec onto the hospital bed despite the random and frequent muscle spasms twisting his body in interesting directions.

“And you only gave him the meds after he’d already seized? It’s a good thing he’s not choking…”

“He wasn’t shaking when I gave them to him, and it’s not like I shoved them down his throat.”

Their charge out of the way and not seizing terribly at the moment, the two women faced each other, nearly in fighting stance. Clipped sentences and veiled accusations snapped across the space between them.

Alec sat up a bit. “Can you two quit talking like I’m not in the room?” His arms wobbled and he slipped back down onto the bed, ignoring the feeling that Max and Doc Fraiser had shoved him down with a glance before glaring at each other again. “Alright, then. At least could you two stop this female pissing match, or whatever it is, about how to take care of me and just…take care of me?” He managed a grin before a spasm snapped through his entire body.

Doc Fraiser took off to grab tryptophan. Max scowled and stepped closer to the bed, but her eyes were worried. Alec ground his teeth and bit back a groan as muscle groups tensed and relaxed at impossible rates.

“Gah, I hate these,” he managed, panting for air as the spell passed.

Max’s brows came down, but her eyes remained surprisingly soft and worried. “I’ve never seen you with the shakes.”

He gave a hint of a laugh. “Cuz we’ve spent every waking moment together since we’ve met,” he said, sarcasm dripping through any pain or annoyance in his voice. His teeth clicked together, sharp, and he continued when he got control over his jaw. “’Sides, most of the time it was in Manticore, Psy-Ops.” His hands fisted, back tensed and he grunted, eyes fixing on a water spot on the ceiling as he fought for control.

“Was your headache Psy-Ops related? How, though? We don’t have anyone here, there’s been no one around but this Familiar… and you think that Cap and Ralph were made to set off the bombs…” Max wondered out loud.

Alec squinted up at her, his face as blank as he could manage it, though his eyes were vulnerable. Then a smirk pulled up one side of his mouth. “You are smarter than you look. Not real sure about that some days.”

“If your brain wasn’t so scrambled already, I’d smack you upside the head.”

He rolled his eyes. “Doesn’t usually stop you.”

“You’re usually messed up, but not _this_ messed up,” she replied lightly. “You look worse than someone just back from reindoctrination.” Why that particular comparison slipped out, she had no idea, but she couldn’t take it back.

Alec’s eyes went dark. “Jeeze, Max, you still don’t get it,” he said, reciprocating none of the humor and levity she had been going for. His gaze drifted back to the ceiling. “Manticore had all of us for ten years after you and your sibs busted out. Hell, the older series had even more than that, just by age. All those years, Psy-Ops was _always_ there. Yeah, sure _you_ had your troubles out in the ‘real world’, but don’t tell me it was anything like Pys-Ops. It was a real threat, and one they weren’t afraid to use. You don’t just forget it, and you _don’t joke_ about it.”

A shudder ran through him, but if it was a seizure or simply a shiver of remembered fears, Max couldn’t tell. She stepped back a pace and sat down on the room’s chair. “Sorry,” she said in a small voice.

“God, I must be sick,” he groaned. “You’re being smart _and_ apologetic.”

Doc Fraiser entered then, pushing the door open with her hip, hands full. A bottle of tryptophan pills, a glass of milk and a vial of clear liquid with a syringe sat on the tray she brought with her. “Good. The spasms seem to have calmed down,” she observed.

“Glad I pass inspection,” Alec replied.

She dissolved a handful of pills in the milk and handed the glass to Alec. “Drink up.”

“Where’d you get the milk?” he wondered; he tilted the glass and frowned at the thick mixture. “I haven’t scored any for a while.”

“Not to bruise your ego, but you’re not the only one who can and does scrounge. I have a supply and give it as a bit of a preventive to some of the X-5’s and X-8’s who tend toward the shakes. The X-6’s generally don’t have them,” she added thoughtfully. “Whatever fiddling Manticore did with them worked, at least for that.”

“Must have replaced it with social awkwardness,” Alec suggested before downing the drink in a single long gulp. “Mmmm, chalky.”

Doc Fraiser hummed in acknowledgement and lifted the vial and syringe.

Alec looked at it warily. “That’s not tryp’,” he observed, voice pitched low and even.

“It’s a mild sedative.”

“Those don’t work on us, Doc, in case you forgot.”

“Mild for us,” she corrected. “We have just enough animal DNA that some non-human medications won’t hurt. This won’t knock you out, not at this dosage, but it will help you relax. You’re staying here and sleeping. I want to keep you under observation for a while to make sure the seizures don’t get worse.”

“Yay, sleep over,” Alec muttered, tracking the needle as it slipped into a vein in his arm. His posture was calm, but tension lines cut deep around his eyes until the syringe went back onto the tray.

Doc gathered her supplies and headed for the door. “I’ll be back in a while to check on you. Max, don’t bother him too much.”

There was a minute of silence as Alec struggled against the pull of the sedative, his eyes on the water spot again, fingers plucking at a frayed edge of the blanket. Max fidgeted and finally spoke.

“Sorry about the crack about reindoctrination.”

He flicked his fingers dismissively. “Even you’re allowed to be an idiot, Max.”

She ignored the comment. “You said your seizures were triggered by Psy-Ops.”

“You try not getting a few wires jiggled loose after going through reindoctrination, six months of psych eval, reindoctrination _again_ and a mild form of it every time you come back from a mission, just to make sure you weren’t planning to break the good little soldier mold,” he said sharply.

“At least you probably don’t remember most of it,” Max offered. Her memories of reindoctrination were no more than black spots edged with pain.

“Right, cuz we just forget stuff.”

“We remember what counts, though. You remembered Rachel even after all of that.” Max really didn’t know where all these words were flying from, but her brain didn’t have much say over it.

Alec turned his head away suddenly. “Never forgot her. Never will.” He swallowed audibly and then said sharply, “Can we change the subject?”

Max nodded when he glanced at her, and they sat in silence for a few minutes. Alec’s breathing evened out and slowed; apparently the weariness brought on by the seizures combined with the sedative was finally pulling him towards some much needed rest.

“What did you find out about Anthony Smith?”

“Nothin’ solid,” he replied slowly. He looked back towards Max and blinked, lids dragging wearily up and down. “You won’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

A grin lit his face. “Psychics.”

“What, like fortune tellers and spoon benders?” she asked, incredulous.

He smirked in slow motion. “Tol’ ya. But no. I mean like… the real deal. Like hypnosis, mind control.”

“So, like Mia and her telecoercion.”

“Sorta. But none of us are origin’l,” he said, words beginning to slur. “Got all our stuff from som’thin’ else.” His eyes fluttered closed.

Max’s brow furrowed as she took in the information. “What are you saying?”

“Mind bend’rs, scoop your brain out wit’ a spoon. Jus’ one look i’ th’ eyes. All crazy, make you crazi’r, all a big headache.” He didn’t open his eyes and his words were nearly indistinguishable. Doc Fraiser’s meds had worked.

She shook her head and smiled a little at his scrambled sentences. “Night, Alec.”

“Mmmm,” he hummed, turning to burrow his cheek into the pillow.

The façade that the world knew as Alec fell away as it so rarely did, and she saw the weary boy he hid. Laughter lines shifted into marks of stress and pain. Bruises under his eyes stood out against the paleness of his face. Without the cocky and suggestive smirks, maturity faded away, but even sleep couldn’t erase the marks of pain and fear that he struggled to hide. He was as much of a conundrum asleep and vulnerable as when he was awake and seemingly invincible.

Max shook her head again and slipped out of the room. “Psychics, huh?” she said to the air. “We’ll see.”

*

It was dark, but there were images that shed no light. He saw a car, size and shape undistinguishable, unknown. A figure stood next to the car, lithe, lovely, a wave of dark hair sweeping down her back. His heart tugged with an emotion he didn’t understand, and fear built like a wave in his chest, propelling him towards her. But his body was heavy, lethargic as he tried to move.

A sound broke out of his throat, and she started to turn towards him, hair swinging over her face. The car exploded into a ball of light. He jerked away, a wordless cry of denial tearing through the air; the darkness rolled over him again.

Alec woke up slowly, consciousness sluggish even as fought past the darkness. A sharp tap of noise and light, and then a moment of silence broke through the blackness, again and again. The blurriness crept back out of his head a little more. He blinked and realized someone was knocking on the door. A voice beyond the pounding lifted in vibrant scolding tones. A lingering sense of dread and pain hovered in his chest, twisting his stomach. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, but the feeling barely dissipated.

He rolled his legs off the bed, confused and clumsy. The light blanket someone had tossed over him at some point tangled around his feet and he stumbled; a hand went out and hit the nightstand, and the tray and empty glass still sitting there. It fell to the ground with a loud crash.

“Oops.”

The voices outside stopped suddenly, and he heard Doc Fraiser sigh. “Obviously, he’s awake _now_.”

Dalton appeared as the door opened. “Hey Alec. We’re gonna be late, so I came to find you.”

Alec’s eyebrows quirked and he glanced at the clock; eleven thirty. “You afraid I was gonna miss lunch or something?”

“No, you said we were going to deliver some of Joshua’s paintings…” Dalton started uncertainly.

“How long did I sleep?” Alec demanded, looking at Doc Fraiser.

“The rest of the day after the seizures stopped, all night, and this morning,” was the reply. The Doc looked rather smug.

Alec glared up at the clock as if it had betrayed him. “What the hell was that stuff you gave me?” He scrubbed a hand over his face and grimaced at the stubble that was now well beyond fashionable. “Dalton, give me a couple minutes and we’ll head out. Get over to Joshua’s studio and get the paintings; he knows which ones. I’ll meet you at the bikes.”

Dalton bobbed his head and scooted out of the room with a wary glance at Doc Fraiser.

“I have a sale to close, so if you wanna let me out so I can get presentable…” Alec stepped towards the door. The pain and fuzziness in his head had faded away, and he felt pretty decent, considering. Other than the assorted aches throughout his entire body from attempting a few rounds with a concrete floor; the headache had left at least.

A change of clothes, a shave and a cup of milk that Doc Fraiser all but poured down his throat, Alec opened the door to the garage where various vehicles were kept. Dalton was already there, with the paintings packed and strapped on the motorcycles. The kid was bouncing on his toes, eager to be away.

“Is everyone stir crazy lately?” Alec muttered to himself. Then, to Dalton, “How did you find out I was in the med wing anyway? It’s not like I left a note.”

Dalton shrugged, fiddling with the straps on the packaged painting. “Everyone knew.”

Alec’s brow’s pinched down in displeasure. “Great. Here I thought I was stealthy.”

“Oh, you were. But a bunch of people were looking for you, and Max just shouted it out in Command last night. She said she was getting sick of telling every single person, and wanted to know why everyone thought she was the one to ask about you all of a sudden.” He shrugged again.

A grimace twisted Alec’s face. “Well, that’s just great.” He swung a leg over his bike and started it. “Let’s get this show on the road.” Dalton grinned and hurried to open the garage door.

Despite the continued mystery and excitement the transgenics posed, it was rare to see anyone in the general vicinity, which made it possible for excursions where the sewer system wouldn’t cut it. The growl of motorcycle engines echoed off the back alley walls as they eased their way out of TC on a side street; the National Guard had focused their watch on the main gate. Alec scanned up and down the block and motioned Dalton to follow when it was obvious there was no one around.

From the roof of Command, only half listening to Mole’s discussion of the sentries, Max turned towards ripping roar of the engines. There was a flash of green as Alec’s bike zipped around the corner and disappeared, followed closely by the darker blur of Dalton. She pushed down the swell of unease the rose in her stomach and chest at the thought of Alec outside of TC so soon after a seizure episode; he might claim he was fine, but when had he ever been really truthful about his own condition. Mole’s voice cut, sharp and annoyed, through her thoughts, and she focused on the conversation at hand. Alec would be alright. He always was.

*

Dalton grinned over at Alec as they waited in line at the sector check point. He returned it, but the emotion never made it to his eyes. Behind his sunglasses, Alec’s gaze scanned the crowd and surrounding area, categorizing and inspecting everything as a potential threat, help or hindrance. Knowledge and caution were vital to all field missions, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. It had dogged him from the moment they left TC. But without any real proof, he couldn’t turn around and go back. He had a deal to keep with Rita, and the money was something that TC needed.

The sector police waved them forward, and they flashed their sector passes. These were as legit as any of the transgenics could get, as they were made out for employees of Rita’s art gallery; the names were aliases and the positions bogus, obviously, but they got Alec, Dalton and a few other X-5’s around the city with relative ease.

A wave of cold swept down Alec’s spine as he rolled out of the checkpoint; it was the rake of a hateful gaze, focused and cruel. It was so sharp and sudden that he slammed the throttle to get away as he turned to look behind him, jamming his bike into a sharp turn. Tires squealed on pavement as his bike wobbled and spun before he brought it to a halt, eyes searching for the threat, fear sharpening every sense. Dalton was still on the other side of the fence, unable to get through; the sector police and the usual crowd around the checkpoint were focused on Alec.

He slowed his breaths and swept the area again, eyes narrowed. The crowd went back to its business, but everyone was stilted with nerves and curiosity. Dalton’s fingers drummed against the handle of his bike as his sector pass was inspected with care. Then Alec saw them.

A grey sedan was parked near the gate, and two men in suits and trench coats stood next to it. A red flash of pain shot through Alec’s head that then flared into hate and fear as he recognized them. Ames White, cold reptilian eyes narrowed stood with an arrogant grin twisting his lips. Next to him was Anthony Smith, face expressionless, eyes on Alec.

Before he realized it, Alec pulled a handgun from under his jacket and leveled it at the Familiars. His finger squeezed the trigger, but at the last moment, his hand jerked and the bullet smacked into the ground a few yards away from them.

The crowd panicked, screaming and darting for cover. Sector police reached for their own weapons and shouted orders. The engine of Dalton’s bike growled as he gunned it for the gate. White drew his own weapon, but Smith never moved, his eyes not quite meeting Alec’s as he watched him. The commands for Alec to drop his weapon went unheeded, and a trigger happy cop loosed a round at him.

“Dalton!” Alec bellowed, mind suddenly catching up with the situation. He ducked as another bullet sang past him and shoved the gun back into his waistband; shooting into a crowd of civilians wasn’t exactly his style. “Get back to base!” His bike jumped up into a low wheelie as he gunned it away from the gate, wanting to lead the Familiars into a chase and then lose them.

But the two men seemed to have no intention of following. White swung around the car and braced his arms on the roof. He fired at Alec, two shots snapping out in rapid succession.

There was almost no time to register the shot to his shoulder before the shot to the rear tire threw him off of the bike. Pain and confusion mingled as he hit the ground and skidded to a stop. The agony of the gunshot wound blanked his mind of all thoughts for blissful moment before every sensation returned with a vengeance.

Gasping, Alec pulled himself off the ground and looked around. Dalton had managed to get out of the crowd, but had stopped, staring back at Alec. “Get out of here!” he ordered the teen. “It’s White!”

Dalton blanched at the name. Yet he hesitated, unwilling to leave a man behind.

“Go!” Alec snarled. Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention and he looked up into the black gaze of Anthony Smith.

The world flashed red with the agony of Psy-Ops’ laser, and then everything went black. Alec crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Dalton, eyes wide and terrified, sped away as the sector police closed on him.

White stepped out from behind the car as a third Familiar jumped out of a nearby van. “Get him,” he ordered. “Meet us back at the warehouse.”

The Familiar slung Alec over his shoulder in a careless fireman’s carry and flung him into the van. The door slammed shut and the vehicle rolled calmly away from the check point and the tumult.

Smith was already in the car when White settled into the passenger seat. They drove in silence for a block before Smith spoke.

“He wasn’t alone like we thought he would be.”

White snorted. “Battle plans change, but the objective is still the same. You’re not worried that 452 will show up and rescue 494 are you?”

“Only if she does so before I am finished with my work,” Smith replied levelly.

“If that happens, it won’t matter. 452 is reckless, she rushes into things. We’ll be ready for her.”

“And yet you’ve never managed to keep her before. The Council was rather disappointed last time. Which is why I’m here.”

White glowered. He didn’t need to be reminded of his humiliation at the hands of the transgenics, an incident which had left him gagged and taped to a post. Nor did he appreciate Smith flaunting his supervisory role over White. While Smith had the plan and the skill, he didn’t have the knowledge of the transgenics or the man-power that White did. It was one of the only reasons The Council had not removed him from the mission, or just eliminated him entirely.

“Yes,” White barely managed to conceal a sneer. “With you here, the transgenics should just fall into our hands. A second of eye contact and they’re trapped more securely than a cage, isn’t that right?”

“Perhaps more than a second.” Smith frowned. “Which is why the appearance of that young transgenic is a rather upsetting factor. You could have easily eliminated him, yet you didn’t.” He glanced at White, challenge and incrimination clear in his voice.

“If he brings 452 to us, then you won’t _need_ all the time that you want – we’ll have her and the mission will be accomplished. Until then, you’re free to dig around whatever brain 494 has,” White shot back.

“You seem to think what I do is so simple, but you have no clue, White. My skill requires precision and focus, something I might lack if I’m unsure that 452 might come bursting in at any time.”

“My men and I will handle her until you’re ready. Focus on 494.” He glared at Smith when the man refused to acknowledge the statement. “Plans change, dammit, that’s how things go in the field.”

“Your methods and mine could be liked to a bread knife and a scalpel. They both can cut, but one requires and delivers precision while the other just hacks away at the problem,” Smith replied serenely.

White gave up the battle momentarily. He wondered, not for the first time, if Smith used his skill on even on his fellow Familiars. It was an unsettling thought.

*  
Dalton blew through gates and doors to slam his bike to a stop inches from Max where she stood in Command.

“White’s got him,” he gasped, “White’s got Alec.”

Max’s stomach dropped and her blood ran icy cold. Everyone in the room went still at the words, the tension soaring through the roof; whispers started. Phrases of fear and disbelief and frustration filled the air and mingled with the haze of motorcycle exhaust, saturating everything with a metallic tang. Dalton collapsed against the handle bars, trembling with fatigue and fear, his eyes imploring her for help. Behind her, Mole ratcheted a shotgun.

Joshua appeared at her elbow, ever the solid, comforting presence she needed. “What are we gonna do, Little Fella?” he asked softly.

“We’re gonna get him back, Big Fella. And kick White’s ass once and for all.”


	5. Part 5

**Part Five**

Alec came back to consciousness so fast it hurt. Between one breath and the next he snapped from the black abyss of complete unawareness to wakefulness, the world sharp edged with pain. His shoulder radiated an aching burn that encompassed most of his torso. Bright lights streamed down into his eyes, cutting past even the protection of closed lids. The aches of the last few days were rekindled and the bruises from the seizures all sang on a high note as nerves remembered how to function.

His brain, scrambling to make up for lost time, ran through the list of pain and presented him with information on his surroundings. Cold and sterile air cut at his throat as he sucked in a deep breath; the solid and chilly press of a steel surface at his back sent shivers through him, and rough clasp of restraints shoved panic past all other reactions. 

Psy-Ops. 

A terrified keen cut through the silence. He choked on it, forcing the sound back. Panic had never helped before. And, Psy-Ops was gone, Manticore was gone. Where ever he was, it wasn’t _there_. 

The thought calmed him momentarily. He blinked open his eyes, wincing as the light shot through his head. A quick glance around proved that he was lying on some sort of exam table, restraints on his arms, legs, and across his chest. Strong lights hung above him, the intense light preventing him from seeing into the shadows beyond. Where ever he was, it was far too close to Psy-Ops for comfort. 

Instinctively he struggled against the restraints, testing for some weakness. He found none and collapsed back against the table with a shuddering breath. 

“I knew this particular set up would produce the correct response,” a voice said somewhere to his left. 

He craned his head around to look. 

Anthony Smith sat on a chair, relaxed and calm, flicking through a notebook. He glanced up, a smug, contented grin showing in his eyes. “Hello 494.” 

Alec lifted his lips in a predator’s parody of a smile. “Hey ya, Tony. Good to finally see you face to face and not feel like my brain was being pureed.” Throat dry, his voice scratched and broke, ruining most of the snark.

“You figured that out, did you?” Smith flipped to a blank page and wrote a short note. 

“Wasn’t that hard.” Alec shifted against the restraints again. “You weren’t exactly subtle.” 

“To you perhaps. But did any of the others of your kind even suspect anything until you brought it up?” The notebook closed and Smith paced over, eyes flicking up and down Alec’s body, studying him. Alec glared but didn’t give him the satisfaction of struggling. “It’s an amazing process, honestly,” Smith continued. “One that I don’t entirely understand myself, but one I can use.” 

“What’s that?” Alec prompted; Smith’s tone screamed he was ready to gush about his own awesomeness, and Alec needed the information. Monologues were also great for distraction purposes. 

Smith smiled, swift and cunning and locked gazes with Alec. “I believe the closest name you would associate with it is telecoercion, so that’s what we’ll say. Though, my talent lies not in forcing someone to do something – though I can very well do that – but rather in rewiring the brain. Rerouting circuits and flipping switches. The pain receptors and memory recall parts of the brain are especially interesting. I can find and replay certain moments and sensation-”

The lazer drill bit into his eye, drove into his brain, and Alec screamed. Or he thought he did; he felt the cold press of Psy-Ops restraints against his limbs and across his chest, the press of a technician’s rubber gloved fingers where they touched his pulse point, monitoring. And then it was gone and he was on the steel table again, panting, Smith looming down at him. 

“Or I can strip away some sensations.” 

Smith blinked, and the pain of the gunshot wound in Alec’s shoulder vanished. It didn’t fade away, it simply disappeared. He gasped in surprise, tension leaking out of his muscles. 

“Or intensify it.” 

It took all of Alec’s willpower not to scream as the pain snapped back to reality and soared past agony. He fought against it, writhing against the restraints until his vision whited out. Then he thumped back against the table, breath sawing harsh in his throat as everything leveled out. Pain was present but manageable. Smith started speaking, but Alec only half listened, reconstructing the walls and defenses that had been broken down. 

“The human mind is a beautiful, complicated thing. The mind of a transgenic, though, is very interesting. Some minds are far more complicated, some far simpler. But yours, 494, is a work of– not beauty exactly but it has similar qualities. It is akin to the stark, destroyed beauty of a city after a battle, when enough time has passed to smooth the scars but not enough to have rebuilt entirely.” 

“Rugged beauty, inside and out, that’s me,” Alec ground out. 

Smith smirked and sat down again to inspect his notebook again. “So many walls and rooms and mazes built inside your head. So many moments to break out of their cages to use.” 

“So that’s what you do, huh? Get into people’s brains, mess them up? Well, have fun. Manticore never had a class on it, but they taught me how to keep brain pickers like you out.” 

Smith paged back in the note book. “Indeed? I have already seen your defenses. You have too many gates in your city, and not enough soldiers to guard them. You are vulnerable that way.” 

“Well, any time you’re sick of digging around in my brain and wanna face me like a real man, let me know.” Alec stopped fighting against the straps around his wrists and focused on trying to slip out of them. He could always dislocate his thumb.

“It won’t work,” Smith said, still reading his notes; Alec shifted to look at him. “Dislocating your thumbs. The straps on your upper arms will prevent you from moving very far, and all the buckles are underneath the table, where you would not be able to reach. Then there are the rest of the restraints. And even your transgenic strength and speed, you would not be able to get free and do damage before White’s men arrive to subdue you again. Or, until I flip a switch in your head and drop you to the ground.” A snarl-like grin lifted his lips away from his teeth.

Alec snarled back. “If I keep my eyes closed, you’re not gonna get much of a chance. Eye contact; Mia needed it, and so do you. Cap and Ralph both saw you before they went kamikaze.” 

“That may be,” Smith allowed. “But do you even recall how long you’ve been here? I have had more than enough time to shuffle around in your brain and do as I please. Your trigger could be a word, another image. I would not have to be around for it.”

That very thought had wormed its way into his head and now grew into a full-fledged terror. “Then why did you have to show yourself to Cap and Ralph?” He shoved the building wave of fear and repulsion away and focused on the information. 

Smith shrugged. “I wanted to see my handiwork. There was a failsafe trigger in their minds, in case I did not arrive on the scene, but I just flipped the switch early. Simple.” He stood and went for the door. “Think on what I’ve said, 494. Perhaps you can try and fortify your mind before I return. It would make an interesting challenge.” 

“Screw you.” 

Smith just lifted his eyebrow and shut the door behind him. 

Alone, Alec let his head fall back against the table and sucked in a shuddering breath. Smith’s words haunted him. How long had he been a prisoner of the Familiars? Was Smith just screwing with him, or had he lost some huge chunk of time to the snake cult’s telecoercionist? His heart rate sped up, breath ratcheting to near hyperventilation. 

Pain, sleep deprivation, solitude, almost every form of torture Manticore had thought up and thrown against him he had managed to beat or withstand. But Psy-Ops, the mind scrambling and brain picking, he had never been able to fight back against effectively. Smith was right – his defenses had always been too spread out; he managed by shifting concentration from place to place as attacks hit, but it always left him exposed and weak somewhere else. And they had always found a crack. Smith must have, as well. 

And Alec had no idea what it was. 

*

“Dix, Logan, tell me you have _something_!” Max shouted as she sprang up the stairs to the computer consoles.

Both computer wizards looked up at her quickly; Dix looked rather terrified and Logan’s face was creased with stress. For good reason. Fear and anger that had long since turned to frustration and rage radiated off Max in palpable waves. Feet apart and hands in fists at her side, she looked from Dix at his desk and Logan on the web cam, demanding an answer. 

“I’ve managed to get ahold of the security footage from the Sector Seven check point. Everything went down like Dalton said,” Logan said; Max waved a hand to hurry him along. “The van that they put Alec in didn’t have plates, but it was White’s car.” 

Dix piped up, “Registered to him and everything. Not afraid, that one.” 

Max frowned. “Was he ever?” 

“Anyway,” Logan continued, “Dix and I have managed to track the van and car through the rather insane route they took to Sector 10 – we managed to follow it through a lot of security feeds along the routes we thought they were taking, given turns and traffic patterns.” 

“And do you have a location?” Max demanded. She fought the urge to reach through the computer screen and shake Logan by the throat. His thoroughness was incredibly useful but also irritating when she wanted straight answers. 

“It’s an old mental hospital. It was slated for demolition, but it was bought by RFC less than a month ago.” 

Max frowned. “They’re being a bit uncreative about using that company, don’t you think?” 

“Don’t you think it’s a bit suspicious that they got this facility right after the Jam Pony Siege?” Logan returned. “And this Anthony Smith, who was with White when Alec got captured, I wouldn’t say they were on great terms, if the body language was anything to go by.” 

“And White didn’t look like he was ordering him around like everyone else,” Dix added. “Same rank maybe?” 

“I’ll worry about that later,” Max said impatiently. “Right now I need an exact address so we can go get Alec.” 

“Max,” Logan began; she recognized the tone and hated it at that moment. 

She spun to glare at him. “What? Be careful, don’t rush into this? What were you going to say?” she demanded. “This is _Alec_ we’re talking about, and he’s been missing over a day while you played around with security footage and analyzed body language! Alec is captured by White - who we know has no love for the transgenics and who Alec has pissed off on a personal level on at least one occasion. And Smith - who Alec figured was some sort of psychic or had the ability to control minds like Mia, only better. So, yeah, go ahead and tell me to calm down.”

Dix coughed quietly and rolled his chair to a different corner of the console. Logan continued to just look at her, face irritatingly calm, but with shadows of doubt leaking into his eyes. Max leaned close to the monitor and fought back the rush of anger and frustration she felt towards him. And towards Alec; why did he always get into trouble and expect her to rescue his ass? 

“Would you be this upset if anyone from TC got taken? Or is it just Alec?”

“No! I mean yes, it doesn’t matter who White has, Alec, Joshua, Mole, anyone. But Alec is my SIC, _I need him._ ”

Something like hurt flashed through Logan’s eyes at her vehemence.

“TC needs him,” Max amended quietly.

Logan sighed, a resigned sound. “I have the address.” 

“Thanks, Logan,” Max tried to smile, but it faltered when he looked away from her. 

“I have the schematics for the building, too, if that would be useful.” His tone was distant. 

“Yes, that would help.” She pulled herself together and focused on the mission. “Mole! Have you got that team together?” 

“Locked and loaded, boss!” was the cigar muffled answer. There was the sharp rattle of numerous weapons being readied.

With one last glance at Logan, who did not return the gaze, Max turned to look at the assembled transgenics. A motley but deadly crew of transhumans ,X-5’s and a few 6’s, had all volunteered. All people who were willing to face the terror of the Familiars to get back a man who up until a month ago had been concerned with the welfare of all only as far as it went to ensure his own comfort. She wondered again if Alec realized how vital a part of TC he had become. And why someone who had been focused on the welfare of number one had stuck around to become that involved.

A feral grin flashed across her face. “Let’s go remind those snake freaks what happens when they take one of our own.” 

*

The soft pop of his thumb dislocating seemed to echo around the room. Alec winced, more at the sound than at the actual pain. Sure, it hurt like hell, dislocations tended to be like that, but he was more worried that some Familiar with freakishly sharp hearing would pick up on the noise. 

He shook his head, pushing the pain and fear away. Irrational fear, mild pain. It really had nothing on the gunshot wound, if he was honest. 

His hand slid out of the restraint, but he swore his shoulder was going to pop next as he pulled and twisted free. The band across his biceps restricted his movements as Smith had predicted, but that wasn’t going to stop him. He pressed the heel of this thumb against the table and popped it back into place. 

“Jeeze-us,” he growled under his breath as he reached under the table. The restraints cut off the blood flow from his biceps down and his entire hand hurt, but his fingertips brushed the buckles. 

“Come on,” he begged as he twisted as much as he could. There was a sort of release button, rather than a belt like buckle; he could feel the other straps running to the one point. One push and he’d be free. The design of the restraints was either incredibly flawed or incredibly efficient. 

He managed to get several fingers on the button when the door opened again. Smith’s voice floated across the space. 

“White told me you were tenacious.” He sounded mildly impressed.

“You have no idea.” Alec bared his teeth. 

The button popped and he twisted across the table and out of the restraints. He hit the floor and rolled to his feet without pausing. Eyes narrowed and low to avoid looking directly at Smith, he leapt across the room. Then, suddenly, he was on floor, limbs paralyzed, and the remnants of a featureless pain leaving him panting. 

Smith opened the door again and three Familiars entered. “I warned you,” he said as the other men hauled Alec back up onto the table. 

Unable to fight back physically, Alec was relieved to find out his mouth still worked. “You did. I had to prove you wrong, though. Part of my nature.” 

“Mildly impressive,” Smith allowed. “Reduced by the fact that you didn’t listen when I said I could incapacitate you in less than a heartbeat, with only the slightest trigger.” 

The muscle men left the room without redoing the restraints. Alec focused on wiggling his left big toe, just to prove he could. Nothing. Panic at being helpless doubled his heart rate. It must have flashed across his face, because Smith chuckled. “So what’s this magic word that can drop a transgenic to the ground, or make others blow up cars?” Alec demanded. 

Smith chuckled again, an utterly humorless sound. “I wouldn’t tell you. And it wouldn’t matter. The trigger is in place, it’s not like you’d be able to remove it, your compartmentalizing skills notwithstanding.” 

Alec scoffed but had no answer. He still couldn’t move, and the helplessness crashed over him like a dark wave. Retreat, regroup, and deploy again was his method. Mind going blank, he fell towards the hidden corner of his mind, where he kept nothing but emptiness. It had saved him countless times in Psy-Ops.

“No you don’t.” Smith’s voice cut through the stillness, and Alec wasn’t even sure if the words were spoken or thrown directly into his head. 

The telecoercionist yanked Alec out of the security of his mind. “Let’s see what we have here.” He began to follow random synapses, pulling out snatches of memories, thoughts, feelings, dancing from one moment to the next, and forcing Alec to see and feel all of it. 

Drab and littered with junk food wrappers, his kitchen table appeared with Joshua standing over it, frowning. Then it the art studio with Josh and Max joking over some bright splash of red paint that had splattered across Max’s new blouse thanks to an overenthusiastic brush stroke. The paint twisted and became a bloom of fire, exploding out from a ruined car as a dark haired girl tumbled away from it. Rachel’s tear streaked face flashed clear and sharp. Suddenly her face morphed into Max’s; the ruins of the red car smoldered behind her. 

Alec flinched away suddenly, a pathetic, “No!” breaking from his throat. He struggled to push the thoughts and images away.

“Oh,” Smith said in wonder. “Indeed? Is that what motivates you, 494? Because I was honestly curious. Your records from Manitcore and most past behavior indicated you were something of a loner, an opportunist. Though your most memorable failure did revolve around a girl…”

“You seem pretty familiar with Manticore’s records for a Familiar,” Alec shot back, breath steadying out as he sought the upper hand in the now verbal sparring match. “You guys have some spies in there, looking for a chance to wipe us all out? Pity Max did such a good job at destroying the place and turning us all loose.” 

Smith’s lip curled in a snarl. “I requested the assignment when I found out a tissue sample of mine had been illegally obtained and used to create the Psy-Ops abominations like…” he paused for a moment and sorted through Alec’s memories, eliciting a groan from the transgenic. “Like Mia.” 

Alec squinted up at him. “You don’t look that old to have given samples of like, anything, to have it used in us transgenics.” 

The snarl did not fade. “Sandeman was obviously aware of all the talents that we Familiars have cultivated. And he was both charming and sly when the need called. Blood and tissue samples from routine medical checks suddenly slipped away and joined the rest of the DNA he had pooled for his little pet project.” Smith paused and looked up and down Alec’s prone body, like one might look at a specimen on display. “The best and the brightest went into you freaks’ DNA mixtures. And where do you think those fine samples came from? We are the best and have infiltrated every branch of society.” 

A shudder of disgust ran down Alec’s spine. To think he shared DNA with Familiars sickened him. He pushed it away and continued to drive verbal spines at Smith. “So, what? You wanted to go to Manticore to keep an eye on your freak kids? How come you didn’t just wipe us all out right away?”

Smith’s nostril’s flared but he did not rise to the bait, though he did answer Alec’s question. “By the time we realized what Sandeman had done, the project was in full swing, and it would have garnered too much unwelcome attention. I was there to observe and infiltrate as best I could. Many of the tricks your Psy-Ops brats knew they learned from me, without knowing it. And I didn’t just have access to your records, 494. I had access to your mind.” He stopped and grinned; Alec grimaced. “We were not ready to eliminate you all; the time of The Coming had not arrived. It was not our place to destroy you yet. Though, Manticore certainly did a good enough job on its own. How many of their own creations did they kill because they were faulty?” 

“Well, it left the best of us, so you’re not going to have an easy time getting rid of us.” 

“The best of abominations? Please, do not over estimate your worth.” 

“Oh I never do, I’m very certain of my value,” Alec grinned back. 

“Indeed? Let us look.” 

Smith flicked a glance at Alec and images rose out of the muddied pool of his mind. Random images and moments flashed past almost faster thought. And through them all there was a strong, beautiful face. Max. 

“Her again? Well, she seems to be something that you consider valuable at least.” 

“She’s a pain in my ass and my boss,” Alec muttered as explanation. “Not really that special.” 

“Your records at Manticore would suggest different. That Berrisford case, your worst trip to Psy-Ops, all revolved around a lovely young lady. And here again…” 

“Dream on, brain boy. I’m gonna be outta here before you can think of some way to end that sentence.” 

“And how will you do that, if you cannot move?” Smith walked to the door again; Alec’s body remained paralyzed. “I will be back, 494. I want to find out which triggers I planted all those years ago are still in place.”

“I didn’t mean it before, but I do now. Screw you.” Alec snarled. The door shut and then opened again; Smith appeared in Alec’s eye line again.

“Allow me to let you have some entertainment while we wait, though.” 

As if a flip had been switched on in his head, a parade of images and pain flooded through him. Every memory of Pys-Ops replayed in vibrant Technicolor. Alec felt a scream building in his chest but fought it back, head tossing uselessly. One part of him knew it wasn’t real, that he’d survived Pys-Ops, and all this was just the memories. But the rest of him could not be convinced as the pain and terror ran as real as blood through his veins. 

The laser flashed red and harsh in his eye, and Alec threw his head back and screamed, pain and despair and rage mingling in the sound. 

Smith nodded in approval. “That should keep you busy for a while.” 

*

Battle ready tension rolled off the TAC team and filled the tunnel just as thoroughly as the stench of the sewers. It had been evening before they had managed to get organized and out of TC. Now, in the dead of night, they were huddled near the ladder that would take them above ground less than a block from where Alec was being held. Max sent Barb and Dalton up to scout; the transhuman’s echolocation would give them a better sense of the lay of the land, and the X-6 was stealthy as well as inconspicuous. 

Restless whispers began to float through the ranks, and Max sent a sharp glance around, quelling the noise. Thus far the transgenics had seen nothing except rats, but there was no telling how far even whispers could carry up through the tunnel and to the streets to attract attention. 

As silence once again fell over the transgenics, shoes scrabbled over pavement and gravel above. Barb and Dalton slipped back down into the sewers. 

“There’s no one outside the building, that we saw,” Dalton reported, breathless, under Max’s questioning gaze. “If there are guards, they are inside. Four doors, one on each side of the building. Not sure about locks.” 

Max looked at Barb. The transhuman shrugged. “There’s not much else to report. They won’t want to draw more attention than they have to. Saw no lights, so they are probably in an interior room or a basement.” 

“Basement.” The others looked in surprise at her certainty. “If there’s a Pys-Ops connection, they’ll be in the basement.” 

“With the Nomilies,” an X-5 named Jet muttered. 

Mole elbowed him hard. “Hey, you’re with some of those you all lumped together as Nomilies, so shut it.” 

The lizard man was right, they were all fellow freaks now, but Max couldn’t blame Jet. The basement of Manticore had been where the nightmares lived. All the medical experimentations, Pys-Ops, solitary confinements and the dreaded Nomilies; such fears and reactions could not be left behind quickly. 

She blinked away the memories of a pair of green eyes staring in fright at the thought of Nomilies, eyes that were so alike and so different from the gaze she now sought for support and help. Alec was not Ben, and even the insanity of physics with Phys-Ops tendencies wouldn’t bother him. Alec was always alright. She had to believe that.

“What’s the plan, boss?” Mole asked. 

“Right,” Max muttered. “Okay people, listen up. Split into four teams, one for each door. Leave a guard to make sure we have exits. Be quiet, but don’t be afraid to use the comms if you need to. The objective is to get Alec out with minimal damage.” 

“What about teaching the Familiars a lesson?” someone asked.

A blood lust she didn’t recognize ran through her veins and a feral grin split her face. “Oh, didn’t I say minimal damage to _us_? Do whatever damage you want to _them_.” 

Mole grinned. “Now we’re talkin’.” 

Max stood, a thrill of excitement running across her nerves. No matter how many times she repressed it, denied it, she was still a soldier and the thought of battle was instinctively attractive. “Move out.” 

They slipped out from the tunnel, fanning out into the shadows as best they could. At a signal from Max, Jet jogged out towards the few streetlights in the area. A few precisely thrown pebbles later, and the entire street was dark. Max looked around at the transgenics one last time, memorizing faces, reminding herself that they were all volunteers and praying they would all make it back in one piece. Then she nodded, and the teams went for the doors. 

Max was with Mole, Dalton and Jet. Dalton darted forward and tested the door; it swung open with little effort. Inside, all there was to be seen was hallway leading to a right hand turn. There was no sign of guards or even recent activity; a few broken chairs lay scattered on the tile, coated in dust. 

“Not too worried about security so far,” Mole muttered. 

“Don’t let your guard down,” Max hissed back, worry beginning to replace the thrill of the chase. What if they had the wrong building after all and Alec wasn’t here? She reached for her comm link. “Everyone in?” she whispered.

A round of affirmatives came back to her.

Jet had scouted past the turn. “We should find the stairs to the basement down that hall,” he said. “There’s a sign.”

“Good. Jet, stay here and watch the exit.” 

The sign led to another, and the arrows led them through a maze of hallways and doors, sometimes descending a few stairs, but never finding the actual basement. Max could feel the weight of the building pressing on her, frustration building with each passing step. 

Barb’s voice came over the comm. “Max, we’re all wondering if there actually is a basement in this building.”

“Logan’s schematics said so.”

“Okay. Out.” 

Mole snorted as they rounded another corner and followed the arrow to the left. “No wonder they closed this place. If you weren’t nuts before you ended up here, you got that way fast.” 

“Found the stairs, boss,” a voice said over the comm link, closely followed by the rest of the team with similar reports. Dalton pushed open a door and pointed with a grin.

“See you all down there,” Max said as she started jogging down the stairs forcing the other two to follow her. Their boots thudded against the concrete and echoes filled the stairwell, but she didn’t care. They hadn’t seen any guards, no real sign of life, and the basement was the last option. After an uncounted number of flights, a sign on a door declared their destination. Max reached out and pulled it open. Light flooded the stairwell, and she got the impression of a large room with hallways and doors leading out of it. And a man standing in front of her 

Suddenly the comm links went wild.

“Shit! Hostiles!”

“Got guards here!”

“Familiars!” 

Ears ringing from the crackling reports, it took Max a second to respond to the threat in front of her. The Familiar swung to face her, a snarl replacing the blank expression on his face. He reached for his side arm and drew it. Max blinked and dropped to the ground in time to hear Mole’s shotgun roar as he fired over her head. The Familiar dropped. 

She stood and said, “Thanks.” 

“Thank me when this is over, cuz we’ve still gotta get princess and get outta this rat trap.” Mole chomped his cigar and fired at a Familiar who appeared around a corner. The man fell back and took cover behind the wall, sending a few blind shots back at the transgenics.

“Get under cover!” Max ordered as the bullets skipped around them; she jumped behind a heavy desk. Mole stepped behind a support pillar and Dalton dove across the space from the door to join her. 

He panted, “They must have done some remodeling, because this doesn’t look anything like the blueprints Logan showed us.” 

She had been thinking the same thing; the basement looked clean and used compared to the rest of the building, but there was still construction dust in the corners and on the floor. “It complicates things a bit,” she agreed.

“A bit?” Mole demanded as a bullet smacked into the pillar a few inches above his head. “It’s a freakin’ warren of Familiars down here, and it only complicates things a _bit_?!”

Her comm link crackled before she had a chance to retort. “Repeat that, Barb!” she shouted over the echoing gunshots.

“I’ve been hearing orders to secure the center room. Alec might be there. And they’ve been saying to get White and more reinforcements here.” 

“Then we need to get moving!” 

“And get trapped when they all just fold in on the center?” Mole said. 

Frustration flared hot and sharp through Max. They were so close. Alec had to be here, and they had to get him out. “All teams!” she bellowed into comm link. “Get to the west side and hold it for an exit. If you can’t, pull back and get back to base!” She glanced at Mole and Dalton. “Cover me.”

“Whatever you’re planning I’m not sure if I’ll like it,” was Mole’s declaration. 

“I’m going to get Alec. Now, cover me!” 

With a snarl, Mole turned and blasted out three quick shots as Dalton peeked around the edge of the desk to fire his handgun. Max sprang out from the cover and ran for the door she was certain led into the center the building. The sudden appearance of the X-5 took the Familiar by surprise and Max disarmed and knocked him out with little effort. 

She looked down a long hallway with two doors down at the very end, one on the right, the other on the left. The sounds of the firefight seemed to fade away, blocked by thick walls; this must have been part of the original layout and not the thinner remodel job. Her sense of direction told her the right hand door would lead more into the center of the building. It was the best shot.

Every footfall and breath echoed off the smooth grey walls and titled floor until it sounded like an entire platoon was running with her. A flash of memory took her back to Manticore, to when Lydecker would march her and her siblings through the basement past the cells of the Nomilies, just to frighten them. She pushed away the images. 

“Must be the right place,” she decided. 

She reached the doors and paused, the echoes fading away. In the moment of silence, she swore she heard a pained plea of denial. Alec’s voice. Heart leaping into her throat, she reached for the knob. 

And the door behind her opened. She froze. 

“452,” a man said in wonderment. “You arrived earlier than expected. White will be disappointed that he’s late to the party.” 

She turned slightly and saw the profile of Anthony Smith. Alec’s words suddenly sprang into her mind. _Just one look in the eyes_. “Oh, the party’s over, Tony,” she replied. 

Cutting her gaze down and to the side, she spun around the rest of the way and swung her arm up to block the punch that would be coming. But Smith didn’t bother with trying to hit her. She turned the block into a feint and dropped to the ground, kicking at his legs; there was still dust and grit from the construction here, she noted. 

Smith sidestepped her kick. “Come, now, 452. You must have figured out who I am, and how I work. I leave the bashing and bruising to White and his ilk. Mine is a more subtle touch.” He crouched, trying to get into her eye line.

“Yeah?” Max asked, eyes not quite meeting his. “Subtle this.” With a snarl, she threw a fistful of grit into Smith’s eyes.

He fell back with a yowl of pain and frustration, and Max jumped after him, pinning him to the ground. He writhed, fighting blind but determined. She jabbed at his eyes, and he fell back in pain; Max finally swung a fist against his temple. Smith collapsed unconscious. 

She stood and shook her hair out of her face. “Maybe you should have gone to the gym with White and worked out, cuz that was pathetic.” 

“No! Please, no! _Please_.” The cry cut through the relative silence, muffled by the door. Max’s blood froze. It was Alec, but he sounded so young and scared, she almost hadn’t recognized him. 

She slammed into the door and opened it. Horror froze her for a moment. Psy-Ops.

*  
They were digging into his brain. He could feel the razor like fingers as they raked back and forth, searching for something, searching for nothing. 

Words floated through the pain. 

_“…493 has developed a flaw… must determine if it is genetic…”_

_“…Your twins made this necessary… duty, honor, mission, loyalty…”_

_“Your only thought is to follow our orders…”_

“No, no, no,” he panted through the pain. He was scared, he hurt, and he was lost. Some part of him kept screaming that none of this was real, but he couldn’t believe it. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. 

_It’s not real!_ The small voice screamed in a new tone, not fear or frustration or even red hot anger. It was cold calm. The same emotion that he fought against so much, the one that threatened to turn him into the monster that Manticore created. But it was the only thing that cut through the clouds of pain and fear, so he finally grabbed a hold of it. 

He fought out past the memories, kicking, stabbing, and punching as he went. All the while the small voice grew stronger, clearer. _That’s right,_ it said. _You know what to do._

Then he was blinking up at bright lights, a face framed in dark hair staring down at him. The switch flicked, and he felt movement return to his limbs. Hands curled into fists. 

“Alec?” the figure asked, and his shredded mind fought to recognize the face. 

The small voice whispered, _Target, eliminate the target!_ Another figured moved behind the first. _Eliminate the target!_ He sprang off the table, pushed the first figured out of the way and slammed his fist up and into the man’s face. There was a satisfying crunch, and the man went down, stabbed through the brain with a broken nose. 

He looked up at the first figure, the face and voice suddenly finding recognition in his head. She looked at him, wide eyed and scared. “Max.”

*

Psy-Ops. It was the first thing that came to her mind. The stark white room, the bright lights above a table with restraints, the screaming patient were all far too familiar. Then she shook it off. She needed to get Alec out of there. 

Alec writhed on the table, his eyes open but unseeing; the restraints hung from the table, but he did not move. Muffled and half formed words tumbled past his lips, his head tossing from side to side. Then, he gasped sharply, and blinked. Awareness returned. 

“Alec?” Max whispered. He looked at her, but did nothing; there was no recognition in his eyes. 

There was a soft scuff from the doorway. “452, you-” the man started, but he never had a chance to finish. 

Without a sound, Alec jumped off the table and pushed Max out of the way. With a single, precise punch, he broke Smith’s nose and drove the bone into his brain. He was dead before he hit the ground. 

Alec took a deep breath and turned to look at her. Recognition seeped back into his gaze. “Max.” 

“I knocked him out,” she whispered. 

“Next time just kill the bastards,” he said sharply. “You leave too many loose ends.” 

She stared in horror. This was not the Alec she knew. What had Smith done to him? 

He went to the door and looked out, head cocked to listen to the gunshots and shouts down the hall. “You have a way out of here?” He suddenly sagged against the doorjamb and closed his eyes. Fingers pinched the bridge of his nose as he took a deep breath. He glanced back at her, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “Any time now, Max.” 

“Yeah,” she said unevenly. She said into her comm link, “People, I’ve got Alec, now prepare to pull back! Mole, be ready to cover us!” 

*

White felt a smirk tug at his lips as he looked down at Smith’s body. The dust of battle had settled, but the wail of police sirens rose above the usual din of the city; even the basement hadn’t been enough to muffle the sound of automatic weapons. The transgenics were long gone, but that hardly mattered now. Smith had failed, and died pathetically, proving White correct in how the transgenics should be handled. 

“Told you mind games don’t work on the filth,” he muttered to the corpse. “Now the council had better listen to my ideas. And the transgenics will be handled once and for all.”


	6. Part 6

**Part Six**

By some miracle, they managed to make it out of the building with only minor wounds. Jet, running rear guard, slipped the cover back over the man hole just as White and his reinforcements showed up. It really had been a textbook rescue. But Max couldn’t shake the feeling that Alec had not made it out unscathed. 

He was cool, distant and almost unfriendly in the days that followed the rescue. She couldn’t quite blame him; he had been wounded both physically and mentally, but it still worried her. In the few moments after he had woken up out of whatever living nightmare had held him to the table, she had seen something frightening in his eyes. Even when they both thought he was going to kill her for his barcode, all that time ago, she had never seen anything so cold in his eyes. It scared her. 

Two days after the rescue, she found him sitting on the roof of Command at dusk, looking out over the city. His legs dangled over the edge, weight pressed ever so slightly forward, almost unbalanced. She settled on the ledge next to him, leaning back and taking a deep breath. The air was cool but surprisingly clear; there would be no rain that night. He glanced at her out of the side of his eye but made no other move and said nothing. 

After a few minutes of silence, Max asked, “How’s the arm with the hole made by a bullet?” 

He blinked and a faint smile lifted his face. He gave a long suffering sigh. “Why is it _always_ that shoulder? Seriously, it’s going to be one big knot of scar tissue.”

She smiled; he sounded almost back to normal. “Don’t you want a scar to show off to the ladies?”

“A sexy scar, not a lump of scar tissue.” He made a face, but it faltered. 

“Alec, how are you feeling?” she asked gently.

He grimaced. “I’m alright.” 

“No, you’re not,” she argued, but her tone was softer than usual. 

He looked up in confusion. “Where’d this concern come from? It started last week with all the headache and seizure stuff, and you haven’t let off. Where’s the Max who’d tell me to ‘suck it up soldier boy and get to work’?” 

“Probably the same place that smart aleck I knew ran to. Where’s he, huh?”

It had been meant mostly in jest, but Alec blanched. He took a shuddering breath but said nothing. 

“Alec?”

“He said he put switches in our heads,” he said suddenly.

Max’s brow crinkled in confusion. “Who?” 

“Smith. He worked at Manticore in Psy-Ops. Undercover, to keep an eye on the project. He said he taught Mia and the rest a bunch of tricks, but they never knew that he taught them. And he said he put switches and triggers in our brains whenever he got the chance.” Alec’s eyes were distant, and a shiver ran through him, rocking him on his precarious seat. 

“So?” Max wondered. “He’s dead now, it shouldn’t be a problem. You said he had to make eye contact.” 

“No, he said they were sometimes set to a predetermined word or image. He wouldn’t have to be around, except he liked to watch his work in action.” Alec looked up at her suddenly, eyes wide and frightened. “I could be a time bomb.” 

“What makes you so special?” she scoffed, trying to lighten the mood. “We all spent time in Psy-Ops.” 

“He said I was a great specimen. And there’s the fact that I spent way more time in Psy-Ops than any other X-series alive. He had a lot more opportunity to mess with me.” 

“Doesn’t mean he did,” Max argued.

He huffed and looked back out over the city, biting his lip. “I felt something shift, Max,” he ground out suddenly. “When I came to in that room. I felt something try to turn on, something dangerous, and I pushed it back. But something was there… there’s no telling if I could suddenly go like Cap and blow up a car. Or worse. And I can’t let that happen. Not to the people here. Not to you,” he added, in a whisper. He leaned a bit further out on the ledge. 

Max reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. She didn’t pull him back or try to shift him. She just let the touch rest, solid and firm, anchoring him. “You won’t,” she said firmly. 

He scoffed, but did not move from under her hand. “You don’t know that.” 

“Maybe not, but I’m not going to let any more of my family get hurt. The people I care about, I’ll fight for to the end. You know that. And you’re part of this crazy family, whether you like it or not. And I’m way scarier than anything Psy-Ops came up with.” 

He gave a half smile. “That’s true,” he allowed. “But if that switch gets flipped…”

“I’ll smack you across the head and scramble your brains back into alignment,” she declared. “You’re stronger than this, Alec. Besides, White’s still out there. We gotta take him down. You can’t let them win.” 

He sighed. “I suppose so.” The half-smile turned into something a bit more roguish. “Not if it’ll give you a chance to smack me around. I do try to avoid it.” 

“Poorly,” Max smirked back. “But that’s what makes you fun.” 

Alec quirked an eyebrow at that statement and Max felt a faint blush creep across her face as he looked into her eyes. Then, he blinked and looked out at the night sky. She turned and followed his gaze; the stars were visible, faint pinpoints of light. Max suddenly thought it was a reflection, a vision of Terminal City and all the transgenics’ future - faint and often covered by clouds and smog, but bright and steady with hope.

Max fought back the sudden urge to scream. Or possibly cry. There were so many people depending on her, but so few she could depend on herself. She could only hope that her own belief in their future would carry them all through to it. And that the person that she had come to trust and depend on would be there with her.

She squeezed Alec’s shoulder gently, the leather of his jacket warm from their combined body heat; her thumb traced a soothing circle without meaning too. He leaned into the touch slightly and away from the edge of the roof. The cold wind whistled around them, sending shivers across their skin, while the flag snapped and danced above their heads. 

_Fin._


End file.
